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Violinist Alexander Simeon Melovidov, born in 1896 on St. Paul Island, Alaska was the son of St. Paul 
Island teacher Simeon Alexander and Alexandra Melovidov, and grandson of the Russian-America 
Company’s last manager on the Pribilof Islands, Alexander Milovidov, and his wife Alexandra_ 
Alexander Simeon Melovidov was also the nephew of Henry Wood and Alexandra Melovidov Elliott. 

(Image courtesy of Alex S. MelovidoffJ 


Library of Congress 



2011 506524 















Alexay Merculief, Alex Galanin receiving WWII Valor Awards July 15, 1965, Washington, D.C. presented by 
U.S. Department of Interior Secretary, Stewart L. Udall. Merculief and Galanin went out in their small boat at 
Garden Cove on St. George Island and saved the lives of the Island’s two teachers who were in distress at sea. 
(NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, RG22-95-ADMC-2767.) 










Pribilof Islands, Alaska 

The People 

A Historical Account told through 
Illustrated Biographies 


by Betty A. Lindsay and John A. Lindsay 


NOAA National Ocean Service 
Office of Response and Restoration, 
Seattle, WA 



May 2010 


U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 
Gary Locke, Secretary 


National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 
Dr. Jane Lubchenco 

Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator 






DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

National Ocean Service 

Office of Response and Restoration 


Betty A. Lindsay and John A. Lindsay 

While the authors have made every effort to provide accurate internet addresses at the time of publica¬ 
tion, neither the U.S. Department of Commerce, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 
nor the authors assume any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Fuither, 
the U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration do not 
have any control over and do not assume any responsibility for the authors or third-party websites or 
their content. 


This entire publication may be cited as follows: 

Lindsay, Betty A., and John A. Lindsay. Pribilof Islands, Alaska: The People. 
U.S. Dept, of Com., NOAA Technical Memorandum NOS ORR 19. 


In partial fulfillment of the Memorandum of Agreement Among the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration and the Alaska State Historic Preservation Officer Regarding National Oceanic and At¬ 
mospheric Administration Actions Pursuant to its Withdrawal from the Civil Administration of St. Paul 
Island, Alaska, Including the Seal Islands Historic District National Historic Landmark, Executive Order 
13287, and NOAA’s Preserve America Initiative. 


ALTHOUGH RELEASED BY NOAA, THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT DOES NOT 
REFLECT, REPRESENT, OR FORM ANY PART OF THE SUPPORT OF THE POLICIES OF NOAA OR 
THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE. FURTHER, RELEASE BY NOAA DOES NOT IMPLY THAT 
NOAA OR THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AGREE WITH THE INFORMATION CONTAINED 
HEREIN. 


ISBN: 978-1-60319-004-6 



DEDICATION 


For All People 
Who Came, Went, Stayed 
Upon the 
Seal Islands, 

Alaska 

and 

Especially to the Unaagin for their contributions and sacrifices toward 
sustaining the nation’s fur-seal industry and the preservation of the 

northern fur seal. 


EPIGRAPH 

There is history as others view it; history as you view it; and history that 

is true but rarely truly understood. 


Song of St. Paul 


Beloved island in the Bering Sea 
In dreams at night you drift to me 
On wild, cold winds that bring the roar 
Of stormy seas cast on your shore. 

Again I hear your seabirds cry, 

Your teeming seals on the beach nearby, 
Your foxes on their endless roam, 
Your church bells call God’s people home. 

Once more I see your children play 
And the faces of friends I miss today. 

I know your roads I walked along 
Will see me back to hear your song. 

~Ruth M. Sherwood ~ 

Reading Specialist and Head Teacher, 
Pribilof Islands School District 1992-97 




Special Thanks 


The following museums, organizations, and 
illustrations seen in this book. 

Alaska State Library 
Alex S. Melovidoff 

American Museum at Rasmuson Center 
American Museum of Natural History 
Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center 
Andrew W. Young 
Ann Baltzo 

Association Communications Excellence 
The Bancroft Library 
77/e Bessemer Herald 
Beverly H. Ray 

California Academy of Sciences 

Charleston Daily Mail 

Cleveland State University 

The Condor 

Cornell University 

The Cosmopolitan 

Cypress Memorial Park 

Deacon Father Andronik Kashevarof 

E. Lester Jones 

Elizabeth Healy 

Ernest A. Bell 

Father Paul Merculief 

Fort Collins, CO, Public Library 

Franklin D. Roosevelt Library 

George Mason University 

George W. Kingsbury 

The Great Round World 

Gretchen W. Fischer 

Gun-Marie Wiis/Swedish Finn Historical 
Society 

Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 
Harpur A. Gosnell 
Harrison County Herald 
Henry Christoffers 
Hugh McIntyre 
Isabel Shepard 
Jeannette Paddock Nichols 
Lewis Francis Byington 
Library of Congress 
Marc Goddu 
Margaret Manor Butler 
Michael Car 

Montgomery County Historical Society 
National Anthropological Archives 
National Archives and Records Administration 


individuals have allowed us to use the many 


National League of American Pen Women 
National Marine Mammal Laboratory 
Library 

National Museum of Natural History 
National Park Service 
New York State Museum 
Nickerson and Cox 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration 

Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology 
and Ethnography 
Phyllis Swetzof 

Presbyterian Historical Society 

Raleigh Register 

Rebecca Kirby 

The Robinson Argus 

Royal B.C. Museum 

Samuel P. Johnston 

San Francisco Examiner 

San Mateo Times 

Sandown, NH, Public Library 

Smithsonian Institution Archives 

South Pass News 

Tacoma Public Library 

TDX Corporation 

Ted Jackson 

Theo. Holm 

Tobyanne Berenberg 

U.S. National Mite Collection History 

U.S. Treasury Department 

University of Alaska Archives 

University of Alaska, Anchorage 

University of Alaska, Fairbanks 

University of Iowa Libraries 

University of Notre Dame Archives 

University of St. Andrews Library 

University of Washington Libraries 

University of Wisconsin Archives 

USCG Museum 

Washington State Historical Society 

William Lewis Brosius IV 

William Manderville 

William Whalley 

Witchita Eagle 

Yuma Daily Sun 


IX 




.SKWAKD PENINSULA 


EASTERN PART 


1 Haring Sro ) 


Location of the Pribilof Islands in the Eastern Bering Sea. U.S.C. & G.S., 1927 
















































St. Paul Island, Alaska 



St. George Island, Alaska 














































St. Paul Island, Alaska 




'Ocoln 


English Bay 


Big Lake 


Rush Hill 


Little Polovlna 


Lake Dune 


Poin' 




s ea 


Bay 


Tolstoi 
Point Point 


City of St. Paul—-A 
Zolotol Bay 


Northeast Point 
Sealion Neck 
Cross Hill 


Polovlna Cliff 


Polovlna Point 


Stony Point 


Lukanin Point 
Kltovi Point 


Reef Point 


I Miles 


St. George Island, Alaska 









Contents 


Preface.xxix 

Acknowledgements.xxxv 

Glossary.xxxvii 

Abbreviations.xxxix 

Introduction.1 

The First Three Managers.11 

Alexander Milovidov (1821-1870).13 

[1] Alexander Milovidov.14 

[2] Alexandra (aka Aleksandra) Milovidov (MelovidofT).16 

[3] Anton Milovidov (Melovidof, Melovedoff).17 

[4] Marcia Milovidov (Melovidov).18 

[5] Simeon Alexander Milovidov (Melovidov, Melovidoff).19 

[5c] Alexander Simeon Milovidov (Melovidov, Melovidoff).22 

[6] Alexander Milovidov.25 

Charles Bryant (1820-1903).25 

Samuel A. Falconer (Falkner) (1831-1915).58 

The Russian Orthodox Church on the Pribilof Islands.79 

Pribilof Islands Clergy—St. George Island.86 

1882-1895: Reverend Father Innokenty (Innokenti) M. Lestenkov 

(Lestenkof) (1832-1895).86 

1896-1898: Father Rafael Kedrovsky.88 

1898-1930: Father Peter Kashevarof (Kashevarov) (1857-1930).88 

1932-1935: Father Stefon (Stephan) Shabanoff.89 

1935- 1936: Bishop Alexii (Alexay) Panteleev.89 

1937-1961: Archimandrite Theodosy (Theodosious) Kulchitsky (circa 

1885-1961).90 

1963- 1964: Reverend Father Michael Lestenkof.91 

1970-1978: Reverend Father Elary Gromoff (1901-1981).91 

Pribilof Islands Clergy—St. Paul Island.94 

1848-1875: Reverend Father Innokenty (Innokentii) Shaiashnikov 

(Shaiashnikoff, Shayashnikov) (1824-1883).95 

1875-1893: Reverend Father Paul Shaiashnikov (1835-1896).96 

1893-1901: Reverend Father Nikolai Rysev (1829-1911).97 

1901-1915: Reverend Father John E. Orloff (Orlof/Orlov) (1859-1928).99 

1917-1924: Father Gregory Kochergin (1877-1945).102 

1924-1929: Archimandrite Gregory Prozorov (1867-1935).103 

1929-1936: Archimandrite John Zlobin (1880-1959).103 

1936- 1960: Reverend Father Makary Baranov (1883-1969).103 

1961- 1962: Father Peter Bankerovich.107 

1962- 1964: Father Simeon Oskolkoff (b. 1930).107 

1964- 1985: Reverend Father Michael D. Lestenkof (1913-2003).107 

Assembly of God Church.112 

Biographies of Individuals.119 

xiii 











































Contents 


A 

Abbey, Charles Augustus (1841-1919).119 

Adams, Benjamin Bristow (1875-1957).122 

Adams, George Russell (1845-1933).124 

Adams, Thomas E.125 

Akerly, Dr. James C. S., PhD, MD (b. 1860).127 

Albrecht, Clarence John (1891-1978).128 

Alexander, Alvin Burton (1854-circa 1920).128 

Alger, Merle Emmitt (1906-1995).130 

Aller, Henry Day (1880-1931).134 

Allis, Watson Colt (1857-1942).135 

Andrews, Roy Chapman (1884-1960).137 

Arkhimandritov, Ilarion Ivanovich (1819-1872).139 

Armstrong, John (b. 1844). 140 

Artomanoff, Kerrick (1826-1900).141 

B 

Baden-Powell, Sir George (1848-1898).147 

Baltzo, Charles Howard (1913-2003).147 

Banks, Nathan (1868-1953).150 

Barnes, Milton (1830-1895).151 

Bartlett, Edward (Bob) Lewis (1904-1968).157 

Beaman, John Warren (1845-1903).157 

Boscowitz, David Aaron (1866-1938) and Leopold Joseph (b. 1868).160 

Boscowitz, Joseph (1835-1923).161 

Boscowitz, Leopold (1832-1895).163 

Bower, Ward Taft (1881-1959).164 

Bowman, Willard L. (1919-1975).165 

Bryant, Charles (1820-1903).166 

Buterin, James P. (1857-1883).167 

Buterin, Karp (b. 1851).167 

Buynitzky, Stephen Nestor (1832-1903).171 

c 

Call, Dr. Samuel Johnson (1858-1909).177 

Campbell, Neddie Burns (b. 1867).178 

Chamberlain, Frederick Morton (1867-1921).179 

Chichester, Harry Dennison (1872-1911).180 

Chomski, Joseph (1946-1993).184 

Christoffers, Harry John (1888-1939).185 

Christofferson, Albert (b. 1876).188 

Clark, Ezra Westcote II (1839-1915).188 

Clark, George A. (1864-1918).192 

Clark, Harry N. (b. 1860). 194 

Coues, Elliott (1842-1899). 195 


XIV 













































Contents 

Creighton, Elmer Ellsworth Farmer (1873-1928).196 

Crowley, Joseph Burns (1858-1931).197 

Culbertson, Richard Guy (1895-1969).203 

D 

Dali, William Healey (1845-1927).211 

General William Ward Duffield (1823-1907).214 

Dunn, Poindexter (1834-1914).218 

E 

Elkins, Stephen Benton (1841-1911).221 

Elliott, Alexandra (Aleksandra) Milovidov (1856-1949).223 

Elliott, Henry Wood (1846-1930).226 

Emanoff, Mamant (1906-1972).240 

Ennis, William H. (b. 1842).240 

Erskine, Melville Cox (1835-1909).242 

F 

Falconer, Samuel (1831-1915).251 

Fassett, Henry “Harry” Clifford (1870-1953).251 

Fish, Charles Pattison (1842-1879).253 

Fletcher, Herbert V..257 

Fowler, Colman Lowell (b. 1846).257 

Fowler, Hubert Green (b. 1845).258 

Fratis, John Sr. (1845-1906).259 

Fratis, John Jr. (b. 1886).260 

G 

Galanin, Parfiri (1872-circa 1905).263 

Gavitt, William (1855-1923).263 

Geoghegan, Richard Henry (1866-1943).266 

Gill, Edward James (1851-1876).268 

Glidden, Henry A. (b. 1821).270 

Goff, Charles James (1847-1905).271 

Gray, Nicolas (1861-1910+).279 

H 

Hahn, Walter F. (1879-1911).287 

Hajny, Richard (1921-2004).288 

Haley, George and Cora (1870-1954 and 1872-1931).290 

Hanna, G Dallas (1887-1970).294 


XV 



































Contents 


OustigofF, Simeon. • :jl1 

P 

Parker, George Howard (1864-1955).513 

Partch, Paul Childers.517 

Phelps, Edward John (1822-1900).517 

Philemonof, Anthony (1952-2009).520 

Philemonof, Terenty Sr. (1921-1969).520 

Pribylov, Gavriil (Gabriel) Loginovich (d. 1796).521 

Proctor, Alexander Henry (1868-1949).524 

R 

Redpath, James C. (1844-1920).529 

Resanzoff (Rezanzoff), Andronic (d. 1887).531 

Resanzoff (Rezanzoff), Innokenty (b. 1877).531 

Resanzoff (Rezanzoff), Peter (1844-1899).532 

Roosevelt, Theodore (1858-1919).533 

Ryan, Thomas F. (b. 1841).534 

S 

Scheffer, Victor Blanchard (b. 1906).535 

Scribner, Benjamin Franklin (1825-1900).538 

Seward, William Henry (1801-1872).539 

Shaiashnikov (Shaiashnikoff), Kass’ian (d. 1859).540 

Shepard, Captain Leonard Griffin (1846-1895).541 

Sims, Edwin W. (1870-1948).544 

Sloss, Leon (1858-1920).548 

Smith, Frank Holmes (1879-1938).549 

Smith, John Anthony “Tony” (1942-2006).550 

Speers, William “Will” Fred (1877/1879-1966).550 

Stanley-Brown, Joseph (1858-1941).556 

Stepetin, Gabriel (Gavril/Gavriel) (1911-1991). 559 

Stepetin, Auxenty “Irish” (1907-1999).563 

Sumner, Charles (1811-1874).564 

Swineford, Alfred Peter (1834-1909).566 

1 

Tanner, Zera Luther (1835-1906). 575 

Taylor, William B. (b. 1850). 577 

Temple, George H. (1858-1921).578 

Tetoff, Neon (1861-1932). 579 

Tevis, Lloyd (1824-1899).580 

xviii 








































Contents 


Thompson, DArcy (1860-1948).580 

Tingle, George Robert (1836-1903).588 

Townsend, Charles Haskins (1859-1944).592 

True, Frederick William (1858-1914).593 

V 

Veniaminov, Ioann (Ivan) (1797-1879).603 

Volkov, Phillip (1820-circa 1887).606 

Voss, Otto (d. 1897).607 

Voznesenskii, IlTa Gavrilovich (1816-1871).607 

W 

Wardman, George W. (1838-1914).611 

Washburn, Seth Monroe (1849-1942).617 

Webster, Daniel (1832-1900).618 

Wentz, Herbert B.620 

Whitney, Alvin Goodnow.622 

Williams, William H. (1835-1909).628 

Bergsland, Knut (1914-1998).637 

Black, Lydia (1925-2007).637 

Hope, Alice (1900-1966).638 

Rosanof, Peter (c. 1900).638 

Selected Bibliography.639 

Appendix.677 

Biographical note.683 


XIX 
























Illustrations 


Violinist Alexander Simeon Melovidov.i 

Alexay Merculief, Alex Galanin receiving WWII Valor Awards.iii 

Location of the Pribilof Islands in the Eastern Bering Sea.ix 

Home of the ACC.9 

Norton House (Webster House). 10 

“All of the American citizens” on St. Paul Island in 1872. 12 

Fort Ross.13 

Alexandra Milovidov and granddaughter.16 

Anton Milovidov.17 

Anton Milovidov, Alex Hanson, Simeon Milovidov.18 

Simeon Alexander Milovidov.21 

St. Paul Island orchestra.21 

Alexander Simeon Melovidoff..23 

Program guide introducing the Indian String Quartet.23 

Program guide introducing “Mr. Alex Melovidov, Second Violin”.24 

Alex Steele Melovidoff being interviewed at his home.24 

Capt. Charles Bryant’s family gravesite.26 

Capt. Charles Bryant’s gravestone.27 

Charles Bryant at the Bay View Inn.28 

Charles Bryant in rocking chair at the Mattapoisett Inn.28 

“A Group of Behring Sea Officials in 1872”..34 

Mattapoisett Inn.40 

Letter from Secretary of Treasury Hugh McCulloch to Capt. Charles Bryant.42 

Samuel Falconer, 1870. 58 

Samuel Falconer and family.59 

Ida “Daisy” Falconer.59 

Capt. Abial Loud, Mrs. Bryant, Janette Pierce, Capt. Charles Bryant, and Samuel 

Falconer.60 

Letter of appointment to Samuel Falconer as Deputy Collector of Customs, 1872.61 

Madam Kadvilavansky’s invitation to Samuel Falconer.62 

Samuel Falconer’s invitation to the military ball.62 

Samuel Falconer’s Certificate of Citizenship.64 

The protest sent by officers of the bark Monticello to Deputy Collector of Customs.64 

Josephine and Samuel Falconer.67 

Samuel Falconer and granddaughter Josephine Swanson.67 

Baron Albert Von Steiger and Lillian Von Steiger.67 

Appointment letter to Assistant Agent Samuel Falconer.69 

Samuel Falconer in Dakota Territory.70 

Inhabitants of St. Paul’s Island, Winter of 1872-73.78 

Sv. Georgii Pobedonosets, or St. George the Victor Chapel, St. George Island.79 

Chapel constructed in 1840, St. Paul Island.80 

Chapel, St. Paul Island, constructed of driftwood in 1840. 80 

Saints Peter and Paul Church, St. Paul Island, 1890s.81 

St. George Village, St. George Island, 1890s.81 


XX 
















































Illustrations 


St. George the Victorious Church, St. George Island, 1890s.81 

Church of the Holy Great Martyr Saint George the Victorious, St. George Island, 

late 1930s.83 

Church of the Holy Great Martyr Saint George the Victorious, St. George Island, 

late 1930s.83 

Right Rev. Archimandrite Theodosius blessing Zapadni Chapel, St. George Island.83 

Saints Peter and Paul Church and graveyard, St. Paul Island.84 

Ekaterina Krukoff with child outside the Government House, St. Paul Island.84 

Procession leaving the new Church of Saints Peter and Paul, St. Paul Island.85 

Saints Peter and Paul Church, St. Paul Island, with the new onion dome.85 

Church procession in St. George Village presided over by Rev. Father Innokenty 

Lestenkov, St. George Island.87 

Father Peter Kashevarof, St. George Island.88 

Father Peter Kashevarof in Church of the Holy Great Martyr Saint George the 

Victorious.89 

Archimandrite Theodosy, St. George Island.90 

Nikolai Merculief, Andronik Kashevarof, Archimandrite Theodosy, and an unidentified 

young man.91 

Group of young women.93 

Heretina Kochergin, Fredericka Martin, and Alexandra Gromoff..93 

Alexandra Gromoff, daughter of Rev. Elary Gromoff, St. Paul Island.94 

Father Paul Shaiashnikov in Saints Peter and Paul Church, St. Paul Island.96 

Nikolai Rysev in Saints Peter and Paul Church, St. Paul Island.99 

Rev. Father John Orloff, Church of Saints Peter and Paul, St. Paul Island.99 

Rev. Father John Orloff and children: Olga, Alexandra, Nadia, and Nicoli, 

St. Paul Island.100 

Deacon Father George Kochutin and Father John Orloff inside Saints Peter and 

Paul Church, St. Paul Island.100 

Rev. Father John Orloff after the wedding of his daughter Olga to Nicolai Kozloff.101 

Rev. Father John Orloff and wedding party at Saints Peter and Paul Church, St. Paul 

Island.101 

Rev. Gregory Kochergin, Saints Peter and Paul Church, St. Paul Island.102 

Father Gregory Prozorov on St. Paul Island.103 

Deacon Father Nikifer Mandregan, Saints Peter and Paul Church.104 

Rev. Father Makary Baranov inside Saints Peter and Paul Church, St. Paul Island.104 

Rev. Father Makary Baranov performing wedding, Saints Peter and Paul Church.105 

Father Makary Baranov and three girls, St. Paul Island.105 

Rev. Father Makary Baranov performing wedding, Saints Peter and Paul Church.105 

Matushka Baranov sewing inside the Priest’s House, St. Paul Island.106 

Matushka Baranov in the church’s greenhouse, St. Paul Island.106 

Dimitri Festenkof, St. George Island.108 

Michael and Stefanida Festenkof..109 

Constantine Festenkof, St. George Island.110 

Elizabeth Festenkof, St. George Island.110 

Native islanders with U.S. civil servants on St. Paul Island, July 1971.Ill 

Assembly of God Church and parsonage St. Paul Island.112 

Sketch of U.S. Treasury Building and Saints Peter and Paul Church, St. Paul Island.... 113 
Boys and men preparing for “Starring” celebration, St. George Island.118 


XXI 











































Illustrations 


The village at St. George Island, from the West, June 2, 1873.118 

Charles Augustus Abbey, age 15.119 

Bristow Adams.122 

“An abducted cow.” Pen and ink by Bristow Adams.123 

Face of fur-seal bull. Pencil drawing by Bristow Adams.123 

Clarence J. Albrecht.128 

Merle Alger holding seal pup, St. Paul Island.130 

“West Virginian Gets Post on Bering Isle”.130 

Ivory ring carved by Merle Alger.131 

“Real Fisherman to Tell Tales”.132 

Franklin D. Roosevelt with cigarette holder.132 

Articles of interest brought back from Alaska by Merle Alger.133 

Jean Aller Sheffield.134 

Watson Colt Allis and wife Edith.136 

Seven men and one boy. Three men holding rifles and one man holding an oar.146 

Charles Howard Baltzo.148 

Fur Seal Rookeries National Historic Landmark plaque.149 

Nathan A. Banks.150 

Milton Barnes.151 

Page of Milton Barnes’ letter to his son, Clarence, written on St. George Island.153 

Milton Barnes.156 

John Beaman in Yellowstone.158 

Betty John with students.159 

Joseph Boscowitz and Henry Appleton, Victoria, B.C.161 

Yates Street from the corner of Wharf Street, south side, Victoria, B.C.162 

Willard Bowman.166 

Karp Buterin with two girls.168 

Karp Buterin and small girl, St. Paul Island.169 

Seal strippers, St. Paul Island.169 

Karp Buterin and family, St. Paul Island.170 

Karp Buterin and small boy.170 

Men playing pool.172 

Water carrier in 1890’s era.176 

Samuel Johnson Call.177 

Egg-gathering party at Walrus Island.178 

Frederick Morton Chamberlain.179 

Harry D. Chichester, seated on the right.181 

Harry Chichester with rifle, hunting on sea ice, St. Paul Island.182 

Harry Chichester ice sailing at St. Paul Island Lagoon.182 

Chichester’s last image of seals.184 

Harry John Christoffers.185 

Harry J. Christoffers and son Harry Jr. in field of lupine, St. Paul Island.186 

Elsie Christoffers on St. Paul Island.187 

Harry John Christoffers Jr. on St. Paul Island.187 

By-products plant, St. Paul Island.188 

Ezra Westcote Clark II. 189 

Ezra Westcote Clark’s gravestone.190 

Elliott Coues. 195 

xxii 





















































Illustrations 


Sketch of Joseph Crowley.197 

Group of government agents and their wives.199 

Joseph Crowley, George Tingle (?), and Joseph Stanley-Brown on warehouse porch, St. 

Paul Island.199 

Richard Culbertson on St. Paul Island.203 

Richard Culbertson, Henry D. Aller, Barbara Aller, Mrs. Peterson, Mrs. Mygatt, Henry 

Mygatt, Watson Colt Allis, Harry A. Peterson, Dr. Bowlby.205 

Teacher Mary Culbertson and school children having a picnic, St. George Island.205 

Teacher Richard Culbertson with senior grade school class, St. George Island.206 

Mule team-drawn wagons, St. George Island.206 

Harry D. Chichester gathering arries eggs at Walrus Island.209 

The Village Hill, St. Paul’s Island, in Zotoi Bay, Native “Bidarrah”.210 

Native Boat, or “Bidarrah,” Village Cove, St, Paul’s Island.210 

William H. Dali.211 

William H. Dali in “Bidarka traveling, ready to start”.212 

Spine of Alaska and Its Resources .213 

William Ward Duffield.215 

U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey map of the Lagoon Rookery, St. Paul Island.217 

Stephen Benton Elkins.221 

Stephen Benton Elkins.222 

Alexandra Milovidov Elliott.224 

Henry Wood Elliott at 24 years of age.226 

Joseph Henry, first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.227 

Henry Wood Elliott at age 15.227 

Spencer Fullerton Baird, Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.228 

Hayden Expedition, Red Buttes, Wyoming Territory.229 

Henry W. Elliott on horseback.231 

Cover of Elliott’s unpublished 1873 book, Report of the Prybilov Group, or Seal 

Islands, of Alaska .232 

Cover of The Fauna of the Prybilov Islands .233 

Cover of Elliott’s 1881 monograph on the Seal Islands fisheries.234 

Elliott, St. George Island.235 

Cover of Henry Wood Elliott’s 1886 book, Our Arctic Province .237 

Self-portrait in ink by Henry Wood Elliott.237 

First Herdsmen were John Fratis and Neil Oustigof.249 

The Government House, Residence of the Treasury Agents, St. Paul’s Island.250 

Bird’s Eye View of Walrus Island.250 

Harry Clifford Fassett.252 

Men in a pickup truck parked at the By-products Plant, St. Paul Island.260 

William Gavitt.264 

Cover of The Aleut Language, by Richard Geoghegan and Fredericka Martin.267 

Edward James Gill’s gravestone in Saints Peter and Paul Churchyard, St. Paul Island.. 270 

Charles James Goff.271 

Goff homestead “Waldomore”.272 

General Nathan Goff..278 

Nicolas Gray, teacher on St. Paul Island.279 

St. Paul Island, string band.281 

Village dance, Simeon Melovidov and wife, Nicholas Gray.282 

xxiii 















































Illustrations 


Interior of Lukah’s Barrabakie, St. Paul’s Village.286 

Capturing Fur Seals, English Bay, St. Paul’s Island.286 

Dixie and Richard Hajny.289 

Matt and father Richard Hajny, St. George Island.289 

George Haley.290 

One-room junior schoolhouse, St. Paul Island.291 

Roy Hurd and Maurice H. Stans on cliff top above Kitovi Rookery, St. Paul Island.292 

Plaques at George and Cora Haley’s gravesite, St. Paul Island.293 

George and Cora Haley gravesite, St. Paul Island.294 

G Dallas and wife Margaret, St. Paul Island...295 

G Dallas Hanna in the fur-seal lab on St. Paul Island.296 

Alex Hanson and Anton Melovidov.298 

Justinia Stepetin with mother, Marva, and Chionia Stepetin Hanson.299 

Xenophont Hanson with mammoth tooth found on St. Paul Island.300 

John Hanson burial procession, St. Paul Island.300 

John Hanson measuring the length of a northern fur seal carcass, St. Paul Island.301 

John Peabody Harrington and Father Makary Baranov, St. Paul Island.302 

John (Ivan) YatchmenefF.302 

Michael Healy aboard USRC Bear .303 

Capt. Michael Healy escorting young ladies from St. Paul Island to school.305 

Dr. Hereford outside St. Paul Island Dispensary.307 

Agapius Honcharenko.308 

William T. Hornaday.310 

Camp-Fire Club of America pledge.315 

“$20,000,000 Lost,” New York Times .316 

“The Fate of the Fur Seal,” VSunday Inter Ocean .317 

Group in dining room.319 

Crew of first B-18 Bolos bomber to land on St. Paul Island.320 

Crowd of pilots and platoon gathered by the marine railway, St. Paul Island.321 

Servicemen loading mail onto a B-18 Bolos bomber, St. Paul Island.321 

Men camouflaging observation post no. 2, St. Paul Island.322 

Capt. Bayer sleeping on a couch, St. Paul Island.322 

Evan Hill in a gun pit at the airfield, St. Paul Island.323 

Military personnel using a reindeer as a bayonet practice target, St. Paul Island.323 

Military personnel horsing around, St. Paul Island.323 

Lieutenant Pusey, Saints Peter and Paul Church in the background. St. Paul Island.324 

John Parrott, President of Parrott & Co.326 

Eli Lundy Huggins. 333 

Hayward M. Hutchinson. 336 

Sitka Farm, residence of Hayward M. Hutchinson, Montgomery County, MD.337 

William Kohl. 333 

Capturing the Sea-lions, Sea-lion Neck, St. Paul’s Island.347 

Aleut boy in front of barabara at St. Paul Island.348 

Aleut in an iqyax.. 

Sheldon Jackson in furs. 351 

Waldomar Jochelson and family at home. 353 

Waldomar Jochelson and Dina Lazareona Jochelson on board a revenue cutter.354 

Superintendent Edward Clyde Johnston, St. Paul Island.361 


XXIV 



















































Illustrations 


Earl Johnston, son of Edward Johnston, at St. George Island.361 

Edward Clyde Johnston with box camera.362 

Dry Seed glass-plate negatives used by Edward Johnston at St. George Island.363 

Wooden box containing hundreds of glass plate and nitrate film negatives taken by 

Edward C. Johnston, and wooden box containing photographic negatives.363 

Rev. Peter Kashevarof, Ermogen Lekanof, Mouza Merculief, and Helena 

Philemonof.364 

Examples of botanical specimens.365 

The U.S. Army Transport Delarof. .366 

Dining room, Funter Bay Cannery Internment Camp.366 

Gold Mine Internment Camp.367 

St. Paul Island children swimming at Funter Bay Cannery Internment Camp.367 

Antone Kochutin on boardwalk at the Funter Bay Cannery Internment Camp.368 

Platonida Melovidov and children at Funter Bay Cannery Internment Camp.368 

Ernest Lester Jones.369 

David Starr Jordan.371 

Joint British-American Commission for Fur-Seal Investigation, Unalaska.376 

Joint Diplomatic Commission 1898, Washington, D.C.376 

Boys’ baseball team, St. Paul Island.378 

St. Paul Island High School class trip, leaving on a Reeve Aleutian airplane.382 

Jacob Kochutin, St. Paul Island.386 

Luka Mandregan’s Barabara, St. Paul Island Village.390 

Albert Webster Lavender.391 

Assist. Engineer Wood, 2nd Lt. Camden, Dr. Samuel J. Call, Capt. C. F. Shoemaker, 

and Capt. Albert W. Lavender.394 

Peterson-Bourdukofsky wedding, Saints Peter and Paul Church, St. Paul Island.395 

Walter, Julia, and Grace Lembkey.397 

Walter, Grace, and Julia Lembkey, and Chief Karp Buterin on porch, St. Paul Island... 397 

View of warehouse and houses, looking toward Village Landing, St. Paul Island.398 

Men with cannons aimed out to sea, with several men holding ramrods.402 

Mrs. Abial Loud.403 

Abial Loud’s pencil map of the village of St. Paul, St. Paul Island.404 

Dr. Hereford, Mrs. Loud, and Agent Abial Loud inside Government House.405 

Men at National Weather Service Office, St. Paul Island.412 

James Macoun.413 

Fur-seal rookery on St. Paul Island with seals and hundreds of dead seal pups.414 

Malavansky family of St. George Island.416 

Men wielding sealing clubs, St. George Island.417 

Plank road between the village and Zapadnie Rookery, St. George Island.418 

Ester and Purl Manderville with son William, St. George Island.418 

William Gordon Manderville with lemming, St. George Island.418 

Purl Manderville and Mr. Olander, St. George Island.419 

Dust jacket of The Far Call .420 

George Marston.421 

George Marston’s gravestone.422 

Rows of houses constructed by the ACC, St. Paul Village, St. Paul Island.424 

St. George villagers “masking” at a Christmas celebration, St. George Island.427 

Aleut boy and woman drying seal meat, St. Paul Island.42/ 


XXV 
















































Illustrations 


Aleut family drying seal meat, St. Paul Island.427 

Aleut boy and women gathering fur-seal meat on a St. Paul Island seal killing-field.... 428 
Aleut woman with leather pack and knife on fur-seal killing ground, St. Paul Island... 428 

Fredericka, Tobyanne, and Samuel Berenberg, St. Paul Island.429 

Fredericka Martin’s gravesite, St. Paul Island.431 

USFWS Penguin anchored off St. George Island.432 

Fredericka Berenberg, baby daughter Tobyanne, and Aleut children, St. Paul Island... 432 

Richard and Hannah Maynard in front of their portrait studio, Victoria, B.C.435 

St. Paul Village, St. Paul Island.437 

Sealing crew on St. Paul Island..438 

The Church of the Holy Apostles Saints Peter and Paul, St. Paul Island.438 

Aleut in iqyax or “bidarkie” (kayak).439 

Aleuts in fur-seal killing field, gathering skins and meat, St. Paul Island.440 

Benjamin McIntyre.441 

Men launching a baidarra, East Landing, St. Paul Island.445 

A two-man iqyax.445 

Aleut wearing a traditional kamleika, St. Paul Island.446 

Meeting at the ACC office in San Francisco.452 

Lee McMillin, George Merculief, and Purl Manderville with octopus.459 

Wives of agents: Dorothy McMillin and Esther Manderville.459 

Clinton Hart Merriam.462 

John F. Miller, President of the Alaska Commercial Company (1870-1881).464 

St. George Village, St. George Island.466 

St. Paul Village with shallow lake in foreground.466 

St. Paul Village, St. Paul Island.467 

John Misikin and a group of men in front of the Carpenter’s Shop, St. Paul Island.469 

Norman Daniel Morgan.470 

Joseph Murray.475 

Joseph Murray branding pups, Chief Karp Buterin heating coals, St. Paul Island.477 

Joseph Murray and Charles Hamlin in a mule-drawn wagon, St. Paul Island.477 

U.S. Revenue Service Steamer Rush .479 

Men on fur-seal killing grounds, Northeast Point, St. Paul Island.480 

Joseph Murray sleeping in a chair, St. Paul Island.481 

Map showing location of the American Seal Herd during the year..493 

Gustaf F. Nybom.495 

Gustave Niebaum’s U.S. passport application.497 

Men outside Government House, St. Paul Island.500 

Dr. Noyes and Harry D. Chichester playing cribbage.501 

The Village, St. Paul’s Island, Looking South over the Village Cove.504 

Wilfred H. Osgood.505 

Murre colony on Walrus Island.506 

Wilfred Osgood inspecting a seal carcass on a St. Paul Island killing ground.506 

Harrison Gray Otis.508 

Men inspecting seals on a killing ground, St. Paul Island.516 

Edward John Phelps.. 

The Bering Sea Tribunal in Paris. 519 

The Proctors with other government workers.525 

Alexander Henry Proctor. 525 


XXVI 

















































Illustrations 


Group of men including Watson Colt Allis and James C. Redpath.530 

Matrona, Peter, and Tatiana Resanzoff.533 

Victor Bernard Scheffer, Colorado A&M College.535 

Victor B. Scheffer weighing northern fur-seal pups at St. Paul Island.537 

Fur-seal biologists at Tolstoi Point, St. Paul Island.537 

Victor S. Scheffer and Charles Ford Wilke.538 

Benjamin Franklin Scribner.539 

William Seward.540 

Capt. Leonard Griffin Shepard.541 

U.S. Revenue Steamer Rush .542 

Edwin W. Sims, Solicitor for the Department of Commerce and Labor.545 

Leon Sloss, President of the ACC.549 

Dr. Frank Holmes Smith.549 

Dr. Samuel Berenberg and Anna Stepetin.552 

Children lined up for immunization at the internment camp.553 

Military personnel on St. Paul Island.554 

Vlass Pankoff in tuberculosis ward.554 

Military personnel with weapon on St. Paul Island.555 

Military personnel on St. Paul Island.555 

Harry Chichester and Joseph Stanley-Brown, St. Paul Island.556 

Joseph Stanley-Brown at the NACC office.559 

Northeast Point Rookery, St. Paul Island.560 

Tolstoi and Lagoon Rookeries, St. Paul Island.561 

Auxenia Stepetin, age 75, St. Paul Island.563 

Irish Stepetin with a large halibut, St. Paul Island.563 

U.S. Senator Charles Sumner.564 

Alfred P. Swineford.566 

Catherine Nedarazoff, St. Paul Island.574 

Zera L. Tanner.575 

Henry W. Elliott’s sketch of Tanner in his cabin on the USFC Albatross .577 

Lloyd Tevis.580 

D’Arcy Thompson.581 

Sealing crew clubbing fur seals, Pribilof Islands.583 

Men skinning fur seals, Pribilof Islands.583 

Group of men on one of the Pribilof Islands.584 

Panorama of dead seal pups at Tolstoi Rookery, St. Paul Island.587 

NACC Christmas banquet, St. Paul Island.591 

Charles Haskins Townsend.592 

Frederick W. True with whale vertebra.594 

An Unangax man in the Village of St. Paul, St. Paul Island.596 

Looking along “the main street,” St. Paul Island.596 

Men landing a baidarra at East Landing, St. Paul Island.597 

Two men walking along “the main street,” St. Paul Village, St. Paul Island.597 

A man walking with his wheelbarrow, St. Paul Village, St. Paul Island.598 

“Parascovia and her son,” St. Paul Village, St. Paul Island.598 

Film crewman and extras for The World In His Arms, St. Paul Island.601 

Seal carcass By-Products Plant, St. Paul Island, ca. 1960.602 

Aleut Family at St. Paul Island in 1894, cleaning sea lion small intestines.602 

xxvii 




















































1 lvAl IvJIN 3 


Innokentii Veniaminov.603 

Pages of Aleut Primer by Rev. Ioann Veniaminov.604 

View of St. George settlement from North Rookery, pencil sketch.609 

View of St. Paul settlement from Village Hill, pencil sketch.610 

Henry Wardman, brother of George Wardman.612 

Notice of local mining news in South Pass, Wyoming.613 

Newspaper advertisement for the Wardman Brothers’ tin and hardware business.613 

Daniel Webster on porch; Alex Hanson stacking seal skins in wagon, St. Paul Island.. 619 

Greenhouse with six-car garage in background, St. Paul Island.621 

Greenhouse located near Old Village Hill, St. Paul Island.621 

Alvin Goodman Whitney.622 

“Bureau of Fisheries as a Matrimonial Agency”.624 


Civil War monument to the 42nd Ohio Infantry, Vicksburg National Military Park.... 628 


Cover of The Great Round World .629 

This Curious World by William Ferguson, Editorial cartoon.676 

Lukannon Beach, East Shore of St. Paul’s Island, Fur Seals Playing in the Surf.677 

Betty A. Lindsay, St. Paul Island.683 

John A. Lindsay, St. Paul Island.683 


xxviii 



















Preface 


At the outset of the third millennium and with the world’s populations routinely talk¬ 
ing about a global economy, it seems incredible that a treeless, five-island archipelago 
with a total area of about seventy-eight square miles, 1 situated in the environmentally 
hostile Bering Sea nearly 300 miles from the Alaska mainland, could have contributed to 
some of the most significant political, economic, and social events in United States and 
Alaska history. The Pribilof Islands, in fact, occasioned the most historically significant 
economic event for the United States in the early era of the Territory of Alaska, prior to 
the 1898 gold rush. Lost in the annals of the 19th century gold rush and the 20th century 
oil rush is the equally important, but earlier, fur rush that sought the luxurious hides not 
only of the sea otter, but also of the northern fur seal whose principal breeding grounds 
are on the Pribilof Islands. 

On July 27, 1868, the government set aside the Pribilof Islands as a “special reserva¬ 
tion” administered by the Secretary of the Treasury for the protection of the fur seals. 
Briefly, the special reservation designation restricted access to the islands to the resident 
Aleut [al-ee-ute] Natives, government personnel, and contractors. For more than a cen¬ 
tury the government controlled and/or administered an industrial monopoly concerned 
with the harvesting of fur seals for their pelts. The Aleut residents, originally brought 
to the uninhabited islands by Russian fur-traders with motives similar to those of their 
American successors, served as the primary labor force on the islands. The U.S. govern¬ 
ment unwittingly denied the Aleuts many of their civil liberties. Access to the special 
reservation required Department of the Treasury or its successor agency’s approval. 

Government reports, correspondence, maps, photographs, and books provided the 
foundation for the history of the Pribilof Islands during the United States era. Government 
and non-government scientists sent to study the fur-seal population gave detailed de¬ 
scriptions of the natural history of these remote islands. 

The sealskin business brought tens of millions of dollars to the U.S. Treasury. The 
islands also enriched private businessmen, including one who would later apply his earn¬ 
ings toward the creation of the California signature vineyard, Inglenook. In the 1970s, 
Inglenook became the Niebaum-Coppola Winery, and subsequently Rubicon, owned by 
film producer and director Francis Ford Coppola and his wife, Eleanor. 

After Alaska came under United States control, law enforcement came to the Pribilofs 
beginning with the U.S. Army, soon followed by the U.S. Revenue Marine Service (which 
later became the U.S. Coast Guard), the U.S. Navy, Treasury agents, company lessee agents, 
and the Aleut people themselves. Potential wars or military conflicts with Great Britain 
and Japan over the islands’ lucrative fur-seal trade were averted diplomatically in the 
late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, respectively. At least five U.S. Presidents 
participated directly in decisions related to the Pribilof Islands. At least two Presidents, 

r T 


XXIX 




Preface 


Ulysses Grant and Teddy Roosevelt, briefly considered exterminating the northern fur- 
seal herd for the sake of peace. 

Over the decades, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) 
within the U.S. Department of Commerce became the ultimate successor to a string of 
federal bureaucracies responsible for the special reservation. After nearly a century of 
complete government control, the islands’ Natives, the Aleuts ( Unaagin), 2 were acknowl¬ 
edged as the rightful holders of their traditional lands. Several federal Acts and agree¬ 
ments, such as The Fur-Seal Act of 1966 (Public Law 89-702) and its 1983 amendment, 
the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, and the Transfer of Property Agreement 
of 1984, directed the transfer of public lands to the Aleuts. Much of these lands lay within 
the Seal Islands National Historic Landmark created in 1966 under the National Historic 
Preservation Act of 1966. 

Slow progress ensued toward the completion of the land transfers. During the interim, 
in the summer of 1989 the State of Alaska’s Department of Environmental Conservation 
(DEC) issued a Notice of Violation against NOAA for an oil sheen release along a shore¬ 
line at St. Paul Island. This incident motivated one of the island’s land recipients to ex¬ 
press concern about other potential environmental quality issues on properties being 
transferred to the Aleuts. Leaders at St. George Island expressed similar concerns, even 
though all appropriate former federal property had already been transferred to them. 

In response to these environmental concerns, the United States Environmental 
Protection Agency (EPA) in 1992 launched a preliminary investigation at both islands 
to assess potential contamination and liability under the Comprehensive Environmental 
Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), popularly known as Superfund, 
and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). In 1994, EPA issued its de¬ 
termination that no contamination posed an unacceptable risk to human health or the 
environment under CERCLA or RCRA. 

Unsatisfied with EPA’s determination, the island leaders continued to allege that the 
United States government had caused environmental quality violations. Acknowledging 
a basis in fact, the United States government waived its sovereignty and NOAA entered 
into the Pribilof Islands Environmental Restoration Agreement, commonly referred to 
as the Two-Party Agreement (TPA) with the State of Alaska on January 26, 1996. The 
TPA coincided with a congressional mandate, Public Law 104-91, signed by President 
Clinton on January 6, 1996. Section 3(c) of PL. 104-91, entitled “Resolution of Federal 
Responsibilities,” required the Secretary of Commerce to clean up contaminants, primar¬ 
ily petroleum, and debris, such as landfills, on the Pribilof Island properties left by the 
government during its operation of the commercial fur-seal industry. 

In 1999, NOAA directed its Director of the Office of Response and Restoration, David 
Kennedy, to address the matter of environmental restoration. Mr. Kennedy selected the 
co-author of this book, John Lindsay, to manage the undertaking. During the course of 
pieparations the agency recognized that the environmental restoration would also re- 
quiie extensive research into the history of petroleum contamination, infrastructure de¬ 
velopment, industrial debris, and solid waste landfills on the islands. As a result, NOAA 


XXX 





Preface 


contracted with the senior author, Betty Lindsay, a genealogist and historical researcher, 
to research and compile materials about the history of the Pribilof Islands. Subsequent to 
her contract, it was learned that both the environmental restoration activities on public 
lands and within a National Historic Landmark, and the property transfer from public 
to private entities, demanded compliance with requirements under Section 106 of the 
National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended. 

The initial historical research recognized that fur-seal management and science, and 
issues concerning civil rights abuses by the government, overshadowed the more personal 
aspects and sacrifices that individual people contributed to the Pribilof Islands’ history. 

During the first fifty years of American possession, the Pribilof Islands, also known 
as the Seal or Mist Islands, offered up many stories of wealth, political intrigue, romance, 
adventure, and tragedy. They often appeared in such publications as Harpers and Frank 
Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, or as front page news in such prestigious outlets as the 
New York Times and the Washington Post. Many fascinating people and events would 
become the central themes of novels, poems, music, and even Hollywood movies. 

Stories about northern fur-seal management, harvesting, and the health and welfare 
of the fur seals fill volumes, as demonstrated by publications like History of Scientific Study 
(Scheffer et al.,1984) and the more recent The Northern Fur Seal (Callorhinus ursinus): A 
Bibliography (Scott et al., 2006) and Pribilof Islands, Alaska: An Annotated Bibliography 
(Lindsay and Sclater, 2009). Other volumes focused on the tragedies befalling the Aleuts 
who ‘slaved’ for Russian and American fur-traders, e.g., Torrey (1978), Slaves of the 
Harvest: The Story of the Pribilof Aleuts; and Jones (1980), A Century of Servitude) and 
on their relocation during WWII, e.g., Kirtland and Coffin (1981), The Relocation and 
Internment of the Aleuts During World War II, and Kohlhoff (1995), When the Wind was 
a River. Several film documentaries focused on these subjects as well, such as Islands 
of Time (Patricia Stanley, producer, and Dennis Remick, writer; Fort Yukon, AI<: Silky 
Way Productions), Aleut Evacuation: The Untold War Story (VHS; Michael and Mary 
Jo Thill, producers; Girdwood, AI<: Gaff Rigged Productions, 1992), and The Aleut Story 
(DVD; Marla Williams,producer and writer; Anchorage, AI<: Sprokettheads, 2005). More 
recent films such as The Aleutians: Cradle of the Storms (DVD; Michael Single, producer, 
and Beth Harrington, producer and writer; Natural History New Zealand Ltd., 2001, and 
Oregon Public Broadcasting, 2002) and People of the Seal (DVD; John A. Lindsay, pro¬ 
ducer and writer, and Kate Raisz, writer; Seattle, WA: NOAA, 2009), sought to portray 
a broader cultural heritage perspective on the Aleut people. During the 1970s and early 
1980s, the Pribilof Aleuts came under attack for their desire to pursue their only signifi¬ 
cant means of livelihood—fur sealing—as portrayed in a 1971 NBC News documentary 
Man’s Thumb on Nature’s Balance hosted by Jack Perkins. The documentaries sought to 
bring a human face to the story of the Pribilofs and an understanding of the injustices and 
indignities suffered by so many on these remote and beautiful sub-arctic islands. 

Taken collectively, “The People” referred to in the book’s title include not only the 
Aleuts, but government officials, businessmen, scientists, natural historians, church of¬ 
ficials, and others who represent the human experience on the Pribilof Islands. When 


XXXI 



Preface 


human beings are involved they make history, and human history is made up of both 
tragedy and comedy. The Pribilof Islands’ history is full of each. The focus of this book 
then is on those people who lived on, worked at, or otherwise influenced and shaped the 
social, political, economic, scientific, and natural history fabric of these Pribilof Islands. 

After attempting several approaches to presenting the Pribilof Islands’ human his¬ 
tory, the senior author elected to illustrate it by using biographical sketches, including in¬ 
dividual genealogies and census records and illustrations. More in-depth Aleut genealo¬ 
gies and census records, enhanced with illustrations, are presented in a separate volume 
{Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Genealogy and Census, 2009). 

The biographies, genealogy and census manuscripts took form subsequent to the 
senior author’s contract with NOAA. Manuscript development utilized her experience in 
the areas of genealogical research and mathematics. Her personal and electronic research 
forays into many national and international archival collections over the past eight years 
synthesized her original vision. The biographical stories rely heavily on quotes from in¬ 
dividuals whose lives were touched by the Pribilof Islands, whether directly or indirectly. 
The stories also rely heavily on “headquarters history” as opposed to “grassroots history,” 
as anthropologist William S. Laughlin distinguished the two source types. 3 

Not unexpectedly, challenges in the research involved wading through untold num¬ 
bers of “headquarters” documents that used the popular practice of identifying gov¬ 
ernment officials only by their initials. The senior author employed numerous research 
techniques to uncover the identities of these officials. Clues used to trace their identities 
and biographies included their mention in various records of formal residences, an indi¬ 
vidual’s age during service, and the names of wives. Search applications relied on various 
name spellings. A list of approaches taken is too long for recounting here. 

The volume’s temporal focus spans the period from the United States’ 1867 purchase 
of Alaska to 1983, which was the end of federal administration on the Pribilof Islands. An 
emphasis was placed on identifying individuals of the Unaagin, or Aleut inhabitants of the 
Pribilof Islands, using biographical information contained in the “headquarters history.” 
For the period covered by this book, the “grassroots” history of the Unaagin was derived 
from members of the Pribilof Islands community and published historical records. Also, 
while the focus is on a 116-year period of federal administration, some important events 
and individuals in the Pribilof Islands’ story are included from the Russian period, which 
began in 1786. The biographical sketches are almost exclusively limited to those persons 
who have died. 

In 2001, NOAA, working with the U.S. Geological Survey, created the first large-scale 
(1:25,000) topographic relief maps of the largest two Pribilof Islands, St. George and St. 
Paul. In that undertaking, an attempt to apply Unangam Tunuu (Aleut language) to place 
names of various topographic features met with moderate success. Names in Unangam 
Tunuu, as well as Russian words and text, are inserted throughout this book as appro¬ 
priate. [Note: Beginning with the Introduction, foreign or Unangan words are italicized 
on their first use.] They are intended to convey an appreciation for and maintenance of 
the Unangam (possessive form of Unangan [oo-nung-an], the Aleut people) cultural iden- 


xxxu 




Preface 


tity and heritage. We note that current attempts to revive Unangam heritage by today’s 
Unangan has led to some variant translations among authors; and we apologize if our 
usage fails to comply with strict standards. 

During the course of developing the manuscript, we debated whether to emphasize 
only the positive contributions made by so many, to the exclusion of those elements that 
were less praiseworthy. We decided that the Pribilof Islands’ story, because of its public 
administration, should be an open exposition of human nature as it appeared in the his¬ 
tory of this microcosm of American society. 4 The motto Past is Prologue above the entry¬ 
way to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., seems apropos. The errors of the past 
should provide purposeful and valuable insights to the present and the future, lest others 
drift and tumble over the same cataracts and suffer again the same inequities, whether by 
the government’s or their own hands. 

One major caveat that begs understanding of this present work is that it is only a 
small portion in the relative enormity of this undertaking. The work typically fails to rep¬ 
resent the full scope of contributions of any individual or of all the persons who were a 
part of the history of the Pribilof Islands. The number of individuals is too daunting and 
the written record too voluminous and dispersed to allow for adequate coverage within 
the time limits set for this project. Lastly, the post-WWII period, through the termination 
of government administration in 1983, was one of great change for the Pribilof Natives. 
Much more could be written about the individual sacrifices and contributions of that 
period. 

The Pribilovians have an outstanding heritage upon which they can build and guide 
their own lives for a better tomorrow. We hope this work will serve them well, as they 
continue to make history. 

Comments about the Narrative Text 

This volume relies heavily upon the words of those who lived during the times covered, 
for their observations and expressions cannot be better stated, and it lessens the op¬ 
portunity of misstating certain facts. We have left most words the way they originally 
appeared in the various documents. Occasionally, handwritten documents were difficult 
to interpret. We either placed a question mark [?] following the suspect word, or stated 
that it was indecipherable. We used [sic] relatively sparingly in the final version, although 
it was applied frequently in drafts because reviewers constantly challenged questionable 
spellings or proper names. For example, Seal Islands is considered a proper name, but 
many writers during the period spelled it in lower case. Typically we corrected obvious 
misspellings, such as “ot” to “to,” or “htey” to “they.” We tried to leave punctuation as it 
was or wasn’t included, but occasionally the temptation was too great and we may have 
inadvertently amended it. Re-examining the records was too onerous a task to justify cor¬ 
recting for a comma that should or should not have been there. 


[ 

xxxiii 



Preface 


Internet Research 

The World Wide Web afforded ample opportunity to expedite historical research on nu¬ 
merous topics, especially genealogy, biography, and geographical locations. Internet sites 
come and go, and many are periodically updated. Herein, web addresses utilized in the 
research are provided in the endnotes. The date on which a website’s information was 
accessed follows the address in parentheses, although we did not strictly adhere to this 
convention. We cannot guarantee that by the time the reader attempts to access a website 
cited in this book, the information will be available or the same. 

Considerable genealogical research relied upon the following subscription web¬ 
sites: GaleNet (http://galenet.gale.com); Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com); and 
Ancestry World Tree at Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com/trees/awt/main.aspx). 
Public libraries typically have licensed access to such sites, and some libraries arrange for 
home access for some patrons and students. The authors also used the GaleNet product 
Biography Resource Center for many biographical searches. 

Common sources for vital statistics used in this book include the Social Security Death 
Index, accessed at http://ssdi.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dlDDB, and the U.S. Census. 

Comments about the Endnotes 

This book contains more than 1,100 endnotes. Newspaper and website citations appear¬ 
ing in endnotes are not included in the References section. Book references are fully an¬ 
notated at the first mention in each section and subsequently abbreviated. 

Pribilof Islands Agent’s Log Books are individual logs in the series Pribilof Islands 
Logbooks, 1870-1961 in Record Group 22 (Records of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), 
located at the National Archives and Records Administration, Pacific Alaska Region, 
Anchorage, Alaska. The Pribilof Islands Logbooks occupy 39 boxes, and boxes 1-39 
cover the years 1870-1961. (See Archival Research Catalog [ARC] 297024 at http://www. 
archives.gov/research/arc/.) 


1 Don C. Foote, Victor Fischer, and George W. Rogers, St. Paul Community Study: An Economic 
and Social Analysis of St. Paul, Pribilof Islands, Alaska (College: Univ. of Alaska, Inst, of Social, 
Economic, and Government Research, 1968), 3. 

2 The term Unaagin refers to those Unangan who are residents of the Pribilof Islands (Knut Bergsland, 
Aleut Dictionary (Fairbanks: Univ. of Alaska, Alaska Native Language Center, 1994), 442. 

3 William S. Laughlin, Aleuts: Survivors of the Bering Land Bridge (New York: Holt, Rinehart, 
Winston, 1980), 120. 

4 Despite the authors best intentions in this regard, they elected not to recount most of the less- 
than-becoming behaviors exhibited by a few individuals in the Native population as chronicled by 
government agents. 


xxxiv 





Acknowledgements 


We want to thank everyone who made this book possible. We begin by saying a special 
thank you to the people of St. Paul and St. George islands. Some of you answered what 
may have seemed unending streams of questions or requests for written records, photo¬ 
graphs, and illustrations. Even though Betty’s trip to St. Paul Island in the year 2000 was 
not for research, it gave her the pleasure of meeting the people themselves at an island 
picnic and in some of their homes and provided her inspiration to write this and other 
books about the Pribilof Islands. Everyone was friendly and forthcoming with histori¬ 
cal stories and traditions. Betty especially wants to acknowledge conversations with and 
access to historical material provided by librarian Anita Carden and her husband, School 
Superintendent Jim Carden, former City Manager John R. Merculief, and City Clerk 
Phyllis Swetzof, as well as the kindness of Darlene and her husband John Melovidov, who 
invited her to tea and surprised her with firsthand stories about the islands. 

We are especially indebted to Judith Bittner and Joan “Jo” Anston, Alaska Office of 
History and Archaeology, who provided guidance and encouragement that led to the 
publication of this book. Also Sonja Kromann, librarian of the NOAA Marine Mammal 
Library, Seattle, Washington, who was there to answer our many questions and guide us 
through the library’s Fur-Seal Archives. We are very grateful to the staff at the National 
Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Pacific Alaska Region in Anchorage, 
Alaska, especially Bruce Parham and Diana Kodiak, who brought so many records to our 
attention and labored for days at the photocopier; Henry Gwiazda in the Cartographic 
Section at the NARA repository in Washington, D.C.; and Bill Greathouse at the NARA re¬ 
pository in Seattle, Washington. We are indebted to the following members of the Pribilof 
community for their contributions to several of the biographies: Aquilina Lestenkoff, 
Phyllis Swetzof, Ron Philemonof, Piama Merculief, and Larry Merculieff. 

We searched many archives and libraries both electronically and in person. We 
found materials on the Pribilof Islands in almost every state in the nation. We give spe¬ 
cial thanks to Ellen Alers, Smithsonian Institution Archives; Dave Bergevin, Smithsonian 
Photographic Services; Vyrtis Thomas, Susan McElrath, Gina Rappaport, and Robert 
Leopold, Smithsonian’s National Anthropological Archives; Norman Reid, Pam Cranston, 
and Cilia Jackson, University of St. Andrews, Scotland, Special Collections; Barbara 
Mathe, American National History Museum, New York City; Laura Pereira and Michael 
LaPides, Kendell Institute Library, New Bedford Whaling Museum, Massachusetts; 
Rose Speranza, Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska, Fairbanks; Mary Anne 
Slemmons and Heather Hadley, Alaska State Library and Archives; Carla Rickerson and 
John Paul Deley, University of Washington Library Special Collections; Notre Dame 
University Special Collection; Cleveland Museum; San Diego Historical Museum; and 
Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California. 


XXXV 




Acknowledgements 


We extend a special thank you to all individuals, libraries, museums, archives, univer¬ 
sities, and historical societies who allowed the use of photographs to accompany biogra¬ 
phies within the text. 

Numerous individuals contributed to the editing of this book, including Professor 
Dan Doyle of Seattle University; Douglas Veltre, Professor Emeritus, University of Alaska, 
Anchorage; Raymond Hudson; Robin Maberry of Labat Services; Karla Sclater, University 
of Washington; Jo Antonson, Deputy Director, Alaska Office of History and Archaeology; 
Jackie Pels, Hardscratch Press; and Bruce Parham, Director of NARA Pacific Alaska 
Region, Anchorage, Alaska. Bruce and Jo made very significant contributions toward 
the completeness and historical accuracy of this work. Martha Jackson proofread the 
final draft of this manuscript. Kristina Worthington is gratefully acknowledged for her 
untiring patience during the design and layout of this book and for working with Sara 
“Sally” Good-Hamilton and Brian Mano at the Government Printing Office to publish 
this book. 

The support indirectly provided by Alaska’s Senator Ted Stevens and Congressman 
Don Young, who recognized the government’s responsibility to the Pribilof Aleut people 
who gave so much in support of their country during the commercial fur-seal harvest and 
WWII, contributed immensely toward the publication of this book. Also John Rayfield, 
Republican Staff Director, Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, 
worked tirelessly to ensure the reality of the environmental restoration work, the trans¬ 
fer of federal property to the Pribilof people, and NOAA’s ability to complete its obliga¬ 
tions under the National Historic Preservation Act. Numerous individuals within NOAA 
also encouraged the publication of this book. Special thanks and gratitude are extended 
to Craig O’Connor; Robert Taylor of the NOAA Office of General Counsel; and David 
Kennedy, Ellen Clark, David Westerholm, Brian Julius, Jack Dunnigan, Bill Corso, Deb 
Larson Salvatore, Thomas Cox, and Aneesah Whaley with the National Ocean Service for 
their encouragement and support. Our apologies are extended to all those other impor¬ 
tant individuals whom we failed to acknowledge, but to whom we extend our sincerest 
appreciation and gratitude. 

Betty A. Lindsay 
John A. Lindsay 


XXXVI 





Glossary 


Note: Sources of some of the foreign terms are provided, but they are not 
necessarily complete. 


barabara (Siberian) — barabora, barrabara; semi-subterranean sod home 
[Laughlin, Aleuts: Survivors of the Bering Land Bridge, 146] 

baidarka (Russian), dim. of baidara; also: baydarka, bidarka, bidarkee, 
bairdarkie, bydarka, and bidarky — a portable boat made of skins stretched 
over wood frames and widely used by Alaskan coastal Natives and Aleuts. 
[Dyson, Baidarka: The Kayak}-, a small Aleut skin boat; kyak (Inuit or 
Eskimo) [Laughlin, Aleuts: Survivors of the Bering Land Bridge, 146; and 
Golovin, The End of Russian America, 231.] 

baidar, bidar, baidara, bidarra, baidarrah, or bidarrah — large open skin boat, 
also called an umiak, used to ferry many people and/or materiel. [Golovin, 
The End of Russian America, 231; Alekseev, The Destiny of Russian America, 
317] 

baidarshchik (Russian) — the head of a baidarka or iqyax hunting party 
[Solovjova and Vovnyanko, The Fur Rush, 339]. Pierce, Russian America: 

A Biographical Dictionary, suggested that a baidarshchik was the head of 
a hunting party. Golovin defined the term as “owner or skilled steersman 
of a baidara; overseer of a crew or group of baidaras.” [The End of Russian 
America, 231] 

chigdax (Unangan) — waterproof parka made from thin strips of sea-lion 
intestine [Bergsland, Aleut Dictionary, 137] 

creole — The word “creole” was a complex socio-economic term under the 
Russian-American Company. It referred to any person with any Russian 
ancestor, or to any “pure-blooded” Aleut educated in Russia or in Russian 
ways [Raymond Hudson, personal communication]. 

galliot — a Russian sailing vessel with short, thick masts, sails cut as narrow 
as possible, and rudders up to “an amazing 14 feet long” [Solovjova and 
Vovnyanko, The Fur Rush, 43] 

iqyax (Unangan) — a single-hatched baidarka or kyak [Bergsland, Aleut 

Dictionary, 210] 

itgayak (Unangan) — reindeer 

iukola (Unangan) — cleaned dried fish used as food [Golovin, The End of 
Russian America, 231] 

kamleika (Chukchi) — waterproof parka made from thin strips of sea-lion 
intestine [Alekseev, The Destiny of Russian America, 317; Laughlin, Aleuts: 
Survivors of the Bering Land Bridge, 55] 

Kamtchadales — cf. English transliteration of Russian Itel’men or 
Kamchadal, original inhabitants living on the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia 


xxxvn 




Glossary 


laaqudax (Unangan) — fur seal [Bergslund, Aleut Dictionary, 727] 
laquk (Unangan) — bachelor seal 
nidilik (Unangan) — baidara 

peredovshchik (Russian) — the head of a hunting crew or a person directing 
work [Solovjova and Vovnyanko, The Fur Rush, 340] 

prikashchik (Russian) or prikazchik (Siberian) — a chief manager, 
supercargo, or overseer. [Alekseev, The Destiny of Russian America, 318; 
Solovjova and Vovnyanko, The Fur Rush, 34 and 340] 

promyshlennik (Russian); promyshlenniki (plural) — fur hunters [Solovjova 
and Vovnyanko, The Fur Rush, 340] 

pud — 36.11 pounds avoirdupois [Alekseev, The Destiny of Russian America, 
317] 

tanaadaqadalix (Unangan) — done visiting this land 

Tanax-Amix (Unangan) — is a name applied both to the archipelago as a 
whole, and specifically to St. Paul Island. The term is interpreted variously. 
Jochelson, History, Ethnology, 76 and Laughlin, Aleuts: Survivors of the 
Bering Land Bridge, 12 interpreted Tanax Amix to mean “The Land Uncle” or 
“The Island Uncle.” 

toion, toyon, tyoun, or tyone (Russian or Kamchadal) — Tikhmenev, A 
History of the Russian-American Company, 505, and Alekseev, The Destiny 
of Russian America, 318, offered that toen is a Kamchadal word for chief or 
leader (Yakut). Laughlin, Aleuts, 148 also translated this word as “leader” 
[Golovin, The End of Russian America, 232; and Willoughby, Alaska Holiday, 
201 ] 

tukux (Unangan) — chief [Bergsland, Aleut Dictionary, 678] 

Unaagin (Unangan) — Aleut word (eastern dialect) for residents or people of 
the Pribilof Islands [Bergsland, Aleut Dictionary, 442] 

Unangam (Unangan) — Possessive form of Unangan 

Unangam Tunuu (Unangan) — eastern Aleut word for the Aleut language 
[Bergsland, Aleut Dictionary, 407] 

Unangan (Unangan) — Aleut word used to characterize those Natives 
inhabiting the eastern Aleutian Islands; interpreted to mean “seasider,” 
“people of the shore,” and “islanders” [Bergsland, Aleut Dictionary, 444, 
unanga: apparently “seasider”; see also Veniaminov, Notes on the Islands, 

157; and Laughlin, Aleuts, 4] 

Unangas (Unangan) — Aleut word used to characterize those Natives 
inhabiting the western Aleutian Islands (Atka to Attu); interpreted to mean 
seasider,” “people of the shore,” and “islanders” 

Unangan tanangin (Unangan) — Aleutian Islands 

Unangax (Unangan) — singular, an individual Aleut or Unangan [Bergsland, 
Aleut Dictionary, 444] 

verst 0.6629 mile or 1.067 kilometers [Alekseev, The Destiny of Russian 
America, 317] 


xxxviii 





Abbreviations 


ACC 

ADC 

ANCSA 

aka 

AMNH 

AMRC 

APIA 

app. 

ASL 

b. 

bp. 

BCA 

BCF 

ca. 

CERCLA 

d. 

DEC 

doc. 

EPA 

FAQs 

FSA 

GDH 

GPO 

H. 

LORAN 

m. 

MM PA 

n [1,2,3 ...] 

NAA 

NACC 

NARA 

nigilan 

NMML 


Alaska Commercial Company 
Alaska Defense Command 
Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act 
also known as 

American Museum of Natural History (New York, New York) 
Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center 
Aleutian-Pribilof Islands Association 
Appendix 

Alaska State Library 

born 

baptized 

British Colimbia Archives 
Bureau of Commercial Fisheries 
circa; about; approximately 

Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and 
Liability Act 

died 

Department of Environmental Conservation (State of Alaska) 
document 

Environmental Protection Agency 
frequently asked questions 
Fur Seal Act 

G Dallas Hanna (no period after G. G was his first name, which 
confused many people over the years.) 

Government Printing Office 
House 

Long Range Aid to Navigation 
married 

Marine Mammal Protection Act 
footnote 

National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution 
North American Commercial Company 
National Archives and Records Administration 
open skin boat 

National Marine Mammal Laboratory 


XXXIX 




Abbreviations 


NMFS 

National Marine Fisheries Service 

no. 

number 

NOAA 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

PCA 

Photo Collection Album [Alaska State Library] 

pt. 

Publ. 

part 

publication 

q.v. 

quod vide, “see which,” used after a term or phrase that should 
be looked up elsewhere in the current document or book 

RAC 

Russian-American Company 

RCRA 

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act 

Re: 

with regard to; regarding 

Ref. 

reference 

rep. 

RG 

report 

Record Group 

RU 

record unit 

S. 

Senate 

SIA 

Smithsonian Institution Archives 

SIRIS 

Smithsonian Institution Research Information Services 

Soc. 

Society 

SSDI 

Social Security Death Index 

TDX 

Tanadgusix Corporation 

TPA 

Two-Party Agreement 

UAA 

University of Alaska, Anchorage 

UAF 

University of Alaska, Fairbanks 

UK 

United Kingdom 

U.S. 

United States 

USBF 

United States Bureau of Fisheries 

USCG 

United States Coast Guard 

USDA 

United States Department of Agriculture 

USFWS 

United States Fish and Wildlife Service 

USN 

United States Navy 

USRC 

United States Revenue Cutter 

USRCS 

United States Revenue Cutter Service 

USRM 

United States Revenue Marine 

USS 

United States Ship 

UW 

University of Washington 

VBS 

Victor Bernard Scheffer 

vol. 

volume 

WWII 

World War II 


xl 




The fur-seal fisheries of St. Paul and St. George Island are the key to control all the resources of northern 
and western Alaska and the forty thousand Indians thereon. Whichever party—the government or the 
monopolists—gets control of those fisheries, with their assured income of a half a million dollars yearly, and 
the commercial power which accompanies it, will be virtually masters of both the trade and the Indians for 
the next ten or twenty years. 


Vincent Colyer, United States Special Indian Commissioner, 
Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, November 1869, 561. 


Introduction 


THE Seal Islands of Alaska, known today as the Pribilof Islands, arose from molten 
magma flowing through fractures in the floor of the central Bering Sea. St. George Island 
was created more than two million years ago; St. Paul Island’s genesis began only 750,000 
years before the present. Approximately 9,000 years ago, pioneers began arriving on the 
Alaska Peninsula and some of the 167 or so islands—the Aleutian Island chain—that 
stretch nearly 1,200 miles toward the Russian coastline. Little did these pioneers realize 
that they were headed back toward the land of their ancestral origin, the Asian conti¬ 
nent. Habitation along the archipelago was suitable only for a people who could master 
the sea. The unique population of settlers with sufficient courage, stamina, and intellect 
to occupy the Aleutian Islands chain eventually referred to themselves as Unangan or 
Unangas, depending upon whether they spoke the eastern or central Aleutian dialect (a 
western or Attuan dialect is now considered extinct, Bergsland [1959]). In English, those 
words translate simply as “the people,” which is how many indigenous groups designate 
themselves. However, Bergsland {Aleut Dictionary, 444) suggested Unangan derives from 
“seasider.” 1 In the mid-eighteenth century, the Russians “discovered” these islands and 
referred to the inhabitants as “marine Cossacks,” or “Aleuts.” 

In 1741, Captains Vitus Bering and Gregorii Chirikov sailed eastward from Kamchatka, 
Siberia, into the Kamchatkan Sea (aka Sea of Kamchatka) under the Russian tsarist expan¬ 
sionist philosophy fostered by Peter the Great and subsequently promoted by Empress 
Anna Ioannovna in 1740 and her successor, Empress Elizabeth, in 1741. Although many 
adventurous sailors, including Chirikov and naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller, survived 
to return to Russia, Bering and others died from disease, attacks by indigenous peoples, 
and the perils unleashed by an extremely hostile environment. But the legacy left by these 
sailors encouraged others to explore what became known as the Bering Sea, including 
the islands between it and the North Pacific Ocean. The Aleutian Islands yielded con¬ 
siderable wealth in the form of sea-otter pelts, known more romantically as “soft gold.” 
Russian fur hunters and traders—the promyshlenniki —forced the Aleuts to compromise 
their ancestral ethos of conservation and to ply their marine-cultural skills to meet the 
Russians’ avaricious needs. 

f 1C 


l 


Pribilof Islands: The People 


Eventually, sea otters became nearly extinct in Alaska and elsewhere. Fortunately for 
the promyshlenniki, the “soft silver” of the sea bear, as Georg Steller had described it, or 
northern fur seal (Callorhinus ursinus), offered a lucrative alternative. Fur seals had been 
swimming through the waters of the Aleutian Islands for as long as the Aleuts could re¬ 
member. At first under Russian domination, the Aleuts killed relatively small numbers, 
giving some of the fur-seal pelts to the Russians, who then traded them in Russia and 
China. As the trade value of the seal pelts increased, the Russians demanded more of 
them from the Aleut hunters. 

No one really knew where the seals migrated, on either the north or south side of the 
Aleutian Islands chain, or at least the Aleuts would not admit to knowing. One night, as 
the story goes, Russian Navigator Commander Gavriil Pribylov supplied an Aleut toion, 2 
or chief, with sufficient liquor to loosen the toion’s tongue. The Unimak chief told Pribylov 
a story about another toion’s son who became caught up in a tempest while hunting in 
his baidarka (kayak, or /qyax 3 ). 4 The young Unangan hunter, Igadagax , 5 was carried to 
the shore of an island— Tanax AmixT (Aleut for “The hand Uncle” or “hand of Mother’s 
Brother”) 7 —to the north, where he found the breeding grounds of laaqudax J 8 (northern 
fur seal). 

Pribylov set sail in June 1786, and soon found the islands that now bear his name. His 
discovery began a business venture that would last nearly 200 years. In the process, sev¬ 
eral abundant marine mammal species (sea otter, walrus, and sea lion) would be stripped 
of an ideal refuge; the uninhabited Seal Islands would become home to the largest Aleut 
community during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries; and the Aleuts of this 
community would develop a new cultural identity. Not until Russian navigator Gavriil 
Foginovich Pribylov brought his Russian culture and alphabet to Tanax Amix did docu¬ 
mentation of events, names, and places become possible for that land. The advent of 
Russian discovery also enabled the Unangan to begin thinking of traditional Tanax Amix 
as home. 

While Russian trading companies dominated the territory and promyshlenniki 
mastered the Aleuts, the Russian Orthodox Church sought to provide the Natives with 
spiritual and intellectual well-being. Church officials, led by Father (later Bishop) Ivan 
Veniaminov, not only developed a written version of the Aleuts’ oral language for use in 
spiritual education, 4 but also provided the first comprehensive, written documentation of 
Aleut life, culture, and environmental setting. 10 

During this early period the Russian imperial government continued to enlist talent¬ 
ed men, similar to the early explorers Bering and Steller, to lead expeditions and gather 
information. British, French, Spanish, and American explorers also ventured into the ter¬ 
ritory claimed by Russians. Many of these men set down their observations, often with 
sketches and other illustrations. A century later, English translations of numerous early 
writings provided Americans with colorful documentation of the early history of what 
became the 49th state. Unangan/Unangas history of the pre-European contact era is es¬ 
sentially limited to the writings of Veniaminov and a few others, although contemporary 
ethnologists and archaeologists continue to bring forth new perspectives. 


2 





Introduction 


Even before the United States purchased the Territory of Alaska from Russia in 1867, 
Americans developed an interest in Alaska’s natural resources, venturing north to take 
whales, sea otters, fur seals, fish, and ice, as well as to survey and explore. Some of these 
men would write of their experiences and of their encounters with the Aleuts. By the time 
of the purchase, however, the once highly profitable whale fishery was changing, and by 
1914 it would be nearly extinct. The only sustainable natural resource of significant value 
within the vast territory was the pelt of the northern fur seal, as it was now known, which 
bred almost exclusively on the Pribilof Islands. 

Soon after the United States took ownership of Alaska, fortune hunters set sail for 
the Pribilofs. They, like the Russians, used the islands’ indigenous Aleuts to nearly exter¬ 
minate the seal herds, despite the Aleuts’ protestations. Fortunately, the U.S. government 
recognized the long-term economic value of the fur seals and other fur-bearing mammals 
in Alaska. On July 27, 1868, Congress passed “An act to extend the Laws of the United 
States relating to Customs, Commerce, and Navigation over the Territory ceded to the 
United States by Russia, to establish a Collection District therein, and for other Purposes.” 
Section 6 of this Act provides “That it shall be unlawful for any person or persons to kill 
any otter, mink, marten, sable, or fur-seal, or other fur-bearing animal, within the limits 
of said territory, or in the waters thereof. . .” (15 Stat. 240, 241). Subsequently, Congress 
passed an Act on March 3, 1869 providing “That the islands of St. Paul and St. George, 
in Alaska, be, and they are hereby, declared a special reservation for government pur¬ 
poses” (15 Stat. 348) intended to protect fur-bearing mammals in the new territory. 11 
The government sent the military to protect the islands’ Native inhabitants and to keep 
unauthorized persons off the islands. Revenue agents were dispatched in 1868 to evaluate 
Native living conditions and the vitality of the seal rookeries; however, delays prevented 
them from arriving until 1869. The agents also prevented traders from shipping sealskins 
taken as part of the Natives’ subsistence harvest, until duties were paid. The revenue 
agents submitted recommendations on how the U.S. government should best protect and 
benefit from its interests on the islands. The government chose to institute an industrial 
monopoly on the islands to harvest the fur seal and to supply the federal treasury with a 
sustainable revenue stream. It also decreed that the Aleuts should remain as the harvest¬ 
ers of the fur seal because of their inherent knowledge and skill, thus continuing what had 
become their traditional vocation under the Russians. 

Over the next one hundred-plus years, much fact and fiction, including some ro¬ 
mance, would be written about the valuable fur seal industry, the businessmen and pi¬ 
rates who sought the wealth derived from it, and others who aimed to control the wealth. 
The U.S. government became the most prolific contributor to the “headquarters history.” 
U.S. government agents of the Seal Islands justified their charge through daily written 
documentation and reported their perspectives on the health and welfare of the Natives. 
Congressional investigations of corruption and malfeasance, allegations of mistreatment 
of the Aleuts, and international claims to the right to take seals filled thousands of pages 
of government documents. Government scientists eventually played a significant role in 
the management of the seal herds. Science and scientists’ careers do not advance without 
a written record, and it became voluminous. 


3 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


In the Bering Sea from approximately 1884 until 1911, hunters employing the prac¬ 
tice known as pelagic sealing, or the killing of seals in the open sea, waged slaughter on 
the fur-seal herd. Men from Canada and America used canoes launched from schooners 
to hunt seals on the water, a practice adopted from Northwest American Indians such as 
Pacheenahts, Nuu-chah-nultas, and Clayoquots. The United States attempted to make 
the practice illegal in the Bering Sea in order to protect its interest in the land harvest. 

Many of the pelagic sealing vessels sailed out of Canada, although California and 
Washington Territory harbored their share. The Canadian involvement brought its sov¬ 
ereign, Great Britain, into the political fray. In an attempt to resolve the dispute between 
pelagic sealers and the U.S. government, an International Tribunal of Arbitration, also 
referred to as the Fur-Seal Arbitration, was convened in Paris, France, from 1892-93. 12 
Legal preparations for the case resulted in innumerable documents, not the least of which 
was the sixteen-volume U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, Proceedings of the Tribunal of 
Arbitration, convened at Paris under the Treaty between the United States of America and 
Great Britain, concluded at Washington February 29, 1892, for the determination of ques¬ 
tions between the two governments concerning the jurisdictional rights of the United States 
in the waters of Bering Sea, published in 1895 by the GPO. 

Newspapers and magazines in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain fre¬ 
quently reported on issues related to the case. Unfortunately, the tribunal’s award (see 
text box) failed to settle the most important issue, the protection of the fur seal from 
extinction. The seal herd continued to decline because of both the pelagic and the land 
harvests. Further scientific investigations were launched by Great Britain and the United 
States to help resolve the conflict over whether the principal cause of the seals’ decline 
was pelagic sealing or land harvest. Numerous scientific and popular writings, congres¬ 
sional hearings, and investigations continued for a few years after the signing of “The 
Convention between the United States and Other Powers Providing for the Preservation 
and Protection of Fur Seals,” popularly known as the “Fur-Seal Treaty of 1911,” by the 
United States, Great Britain, Russia, and Japan. 

From 1911 until after World War II (WWII), most of the written records about the 
Pribilof Islands, other than scientific findings, were government documents, especial¬ 
ly annual reports and an occasional investigation into employee malfeasance. The war 
brought its own tragedy to the people of the Pribilof and Aleutian islands. More stories 
would be written about that period than any other, except the pelagic sealing era. But 
events of WWII also shed light on the plight of the Pribilof Islands Aleuts, who, with the 
help of outsiders, began to seek full entitlement to their civil rights, including the right to 
self-determination that the federal government had long denied them. The Aleuts’ strug¬ 
gle progressed slowly between 1946 and 1963, when a government administrator was 
brought in to undertake the transition from federal control to civil administration and 
private land ownership. In 1983, the government relinquished all of its responsibility for 
administration of the islands and management of the fur-seal industry, excepting the seal 
and bird rookeries. In 1984, the majority of federal lands were transferred to Native enti¬ 
ties and commercial sealing ended when the U.S. Senate refused to ratify an extension to 
the 1957 Interim Convention on Conservation of North Pacific Fur Seals.” 13 Thereafter, 


4 





Introduction 


the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 (MMPA), which forbade commercial har¬ 
vests of marine mammals, took precedence. Struggling to develop new livelihoods, the 
Aleut people, including those on the Seal Islands, turned to the biologically rich Bering 
Sea for economic diversification. Offshore petroleum exploration during the latter twen¬ 
tieth century provided some potential economic relief, but that effort was short-lived. 
The Bering Sea fisheries, the most productive in the world, offered the best alternative. 
Federal aid and investments by industrial fish processors fueled the Seal Islands’ future 
economy, and many Aleuts were able to resume an ancestral maritime-based subsistence. 

Recorded history of the Pribilof Islands during the American period is replete with 
stories of individual courage and fortitude as well as scandal and shame. Told through the 
people involved, these stories are among the many colorful threads woven into the fabric 
of U.S. and Alaskan history. 

The biographical portion of this book is a collection of sketches of remarkable per¬ 
sons now deceased who, either directly or indirectly, played a part in the history of the 
Pribilof Islands. The only exception is the inclusion of centenarian Victor B. Scheffer, who 
at the time of this writing still resides in Seattle. Scheffer helped define the scientific and 
management history of the fur-seal herd. The focus is on the period from 1867 (the U.S. 
purchase) to 1983, when administrative control and most land ownership on the two 
remote islands were relinquished to the resident Aleuts. 

Many of the people included in this book never set foot on the Pribilof Islands 
but were significant players nonetheless. On the other hand, the Aleut inhabitants of 
the Pribilof Islands (Unaagin) rarely left written records, so their legacy was more often 
chronicled by their Russian and Anglo contemporaries. Consequently, individual Aleuts 
are poorly represented among the biographies. 

The biographies, which spotlight more than 200 individuals, are drawn from many 
sources besides standard reference works: privately published books, personal diaries, au¬ 
tobiographies and biographies, letters, firsthand accounts of personal experiences noted 
in official reports, newspaper and magazine articles, World Wide Web sites, and the ar¬ 
chives of assorted institutions. What the sources reveal are always interesting, sometimes 
complex and intriguing, and often adventurous lives. 

Although many of the individuals are introduced with information on birth, parent¬ 
age, marriage, offspring, and death, the genealogical record incorporated herein remains 
incomplete for many and entirely wanting for some. When sufficient details allow, a bio¬ 
graphical sketch is included to depict the individual’s general character outside of the 
Pribilof experience. The reader may occasionally recognize that an individual’s behavior 
off the Pribilofs either accounts for, or is in contradiction to, his behavior on the islands. 
The general biographical sketch is often followed with more specific Pribilof Islands- 
related experiences. Excerpts from depositions given in support of the United States case 
before the International Tribunal of Arbitration from 1891 to 1893 are included when 
they offer insight into conditions on the islands. This book relies heavily upon first-per¬ 
son accounts. 


5 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


AWARD 

of 

THE TRIBUNAL OF ARBITRATION 
CONSTITUTED 

UNDER THE TREATY CONCLUDED AT WASHINGTON, 

THE 29TH OF FEBRUARY, 1892 
BETWEEN 

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
AND HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN OF THE UNITED KINGDOM 
OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND* 

Article 1. 

The Governments of the United States and of Great Britain shall forbid their citizens and 
subjects respectively to kill, capture, or pursue, at any time and in any manner whatever, 
the animals commonly called fur seals, within a zone of sixty miles around the Pribilof 
Islands, inclusive of the territorial waters. 

The miles mentioned in the preceding paragraph are geographical miles of sixty to a degree 
of latitude. 

Article 2. 

The two Governments shall forbid their citizens and subjects respectively to kill, capture, 
or pursue, in any manner whatever, during the season extending each year, from the 1st 
of May to the 31st of July, both inclusive, the fur seals on the high sea, in the part of the 
Pacific Ocean, inclusive of the Bering Sea, which is situated to the north of the 35th degree 
of North latitude, and eastward of the 180th degree of longitude from Greenwich till it 
strikes the water boundary described in Article 1 of the Treaty of 1867 between the United 
States and Russia, and following that line up to Bering Straits. 

Article 3. 

During the period of time and in the waters in which the fur seal fishing is allowed, only 
sailing vessels shall be permitted to carry on or take part in fur-seal fishing operations. 

They will, however, be at liberty to avail themselves of the use of such canoes or undecked 
boats, propelled by paddles, oars, or sails, as are in common use as fishing boats. 

Article 4. 

Each sailing vessel authorized to fish for fur seals must be provided with a special license 
issued for that purpose by its Government and shall be required to carry a distinguishing 
flag to be prescribed by its Government. 

Article 5. 

The masters of the vessels engaged in fur seal fishing shall enter accurately in their official 
log book the date and place of each fur seal fishing operation, and also the number and sex 
of the seals captured upon each day. These entries shall be communicated by each of the 
two Governments to the other at the end of each fishing season. 

Article 6. 

The use of nets, firearms, and explosives shall be forbidden in the fur seal fishing. This 
lestriction shall not apply to shotguns when such fishing takes place outside of Bering’s 
Sea, during the season when it may be lawfully carried on. 

Article 7. 

The two Governments shall take measures to control the fitness of the men authorized to 
en § a g e i n fur seal fishing; these men shall have been proved fit to handle with sufficient 
skill the weapons by means of which this fishing may be carried on. 


6 






Introduction 


Article 8. 

The regulations contained in the preceding articles shall not apply to Indians dwelling on 
the coasts of the territory of the United States or of Great Britain and carrying on fur seal 
fishing in canoes or undecked boats not transported by or used in connection with other 
vessels and propelled wholly by paddles, oars, or sails, and manned by Indians, provided 
that, when so hunting in canoes or undecked boats, they shall not hunt fur seals outside of 
territorial waters under contract for the delivery of the skins to any person. 

This exemption shall not be construed to affect the municipal law of either country, nor 
shall it extend to the waters of Bering Sea or the waters of the Aleutian Passes. 

Nothing herein contained is intended to interfere with the employment of Indians as 
hunters or otherwise in connection with fur sealing vessels as heretofore. 

Article 9. 

The concurrent regulations hereby determined with a view to the protection and 
preservation of the fur seals shall remain in force until they have been, in whole or in part, 
abolished or modified by common agreement between the Governments of the United 
States and of Great Britain. 

The said concurrent regulations shall be submitted every five years to a new examination, 
so as to enable both interested Governments to consider whether, in the light of past 
experience, there is occasion for any modification thereof, [portion excluded dealing with 
liability over seized vessels]. 

* Source: U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, convened 
at Paris under the Treaty between the United States of America and Great Britain, concluded at 
Washington February 29, 1892, for the determination of questions between the two governments 
concerning the jurisdictional rights of the United States in the waters of Bering Sea, vol. 1 (Wash¬ 
ington, DC: GPO, 1895), 75-80. 


During the course of their involvement with the Pribilof Islands, the authors became 
acutely aware of the long-overdue credit owed to the islands’ Aleut population for its 
contribution and sacrifice toward the protection of the northern fur seal and the genera¬ 
tion of significant revenues for the nation. As noted, surviving written records pertaining 
to the Pribilof Islands’ Native population—letters, diaries, log books, reports—were pro¬ 
duced mainly by non-Aleuts. One notable exception exists in the depositions mentioned 
above, given before the International Tribunal of Arbitration in the 1890s. Deponents 
included Aleut sealers, who occasionally offered Native perspectives of life on the Pribilof 
Islands. 

Throughout the biography, the terms “agent,” “assistant agent,” and “special agent” 
are used as titles for the U.S. government or commercial company persons with authority 
over the management and/or administration of the islands. Over time, some men held 
more than one title as they rose in rank. Occasionally, in the Russian and early American 
periods, an agent was referred to as “governor.” This term of respect was merely a 19th- 
century colloquialism for “the man in charge,” not the equivalent of governor of the state 
of Alaska, for instance. Women never became agents, although many worked as teachers 
or nurses; several are represented herein. 


7 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


The Secretary of the Treasury, usually at the direction of the President during the 
1800s, appointed one agent and typically three assistant agents. All agents took oaths to 
uphold the duties of their assignment, and these men remained in service until relieved 
through official notification from the Secretary of the Treasury. Under congressional 
orders, the Secretary of the Treasury also sent special agents and assistant special agents 
on short-term assignments to gather specific information. Special agents included men 
such as Stephen Buynitzky, Charles Bryant, and Hugh McIntyre in 1868, Henry W. Elliott 
in 1890, and Joseph Stanley-Brown in 1892. By 1913, the man in charge held the title of 
agent and caretaker. Later the position was titled superintendent. 

The volume begins with a brief history of Russian Orthodox churches on the Seal 
Islands, and genealogies and biographical sketches of the clergymen who served the 
Pribilof Islands’ Native communities. The post-cession administration on the Pribilof 
Islands began with agent Alexander Milovidov representing Hutchinson, Kohl & 
Company, and two of the first U.S. government agents/assistant agents, Charles Bryant 
and Samuel Falconer. 14 The expanded biographical sketches and genealogies of these 
three men follow those of the clergymen. Subsequently, the stories of other individuals 
who lived on, worked on, or otherwise influenced Pribilof Islands history are presented 
alphabetically. 


1 Aleut linguist Moses Dirks puportedly interpreted Unangan as “people of the passes.” Ounalashka 
Corporation. http://www.ounalashka.com/Unalaska%20History.htm (accessed June 6, 2009). 

Others have interpreted Unangan to mean “the people,” e.g., The Alaska Geographic Society, “The 
Aleutians,” Alaska Geographic (Anchorage: The Alaska Geographic Society, 1980), 82. 

2 P. A. Tikhmenev, A History of The Russian American Company (Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 
1978), 5, offered the interpretation that toen is a Kamchadal (area of Siberia) word for chief. The 
word has been variously spelled as toion, tyone, toyon, tyoun (see Glossary). 

3 Knut Bergsland, Aleut Dictionary: Unangam Tunudgusii (Fairbanks: Univ. of Alaska, Alaska Native 
Language Center, 1994), 210. 

4 Ivan Veniaminov, Notes on the Islands of the Unalashka District [Zapiski ob ostrovakh 
Unalashkinskago otdeyla, 1832], ed. Richard A. Pierce, trans. Lydia T. Black and R. H. Geoghegan 
(Fairbanks, AI<: Limestone Press, 1984), 134. 

5 The Aleut name Igadagax is spelled variously in the literature. As used herein, the name is as given 
by Knut Bergsland, Ancient Aleut Personal Names, 200. Waldemar Jochelson, Aleut Tales and 
Narratives, Collected in 1909-1910, used the name Iggadaagix. See Igadagax biography in this 
volume. 

6 Veniaminov, Notes on the Islands, 134, states that the islands discovered by Igadagax were called 
Amix. The origin of the name Tanax-Amix is uncertain. Henry W. Elliott in The Seal-Islands 

of Alaska (Kingston, ON: Limestone Press, 1976 reprint of 1881 edition), 146, who translated 
Veniaminov’s work, spelled the islands’ name “Ateek.” 

/ Veniaminov wrote the first full account of the legend of Igadagax. No archaeological or written 
evidence is known to exist demonstrating that any Unangan inhabited Tanax-Amix. The story of 
Tanax-Amix lives through a fragment of oral history or “memory culture.” The value of memory 
culture is described in Margaret Lantis and Robert E. Ackerman, eds., Ethnohistory in Southwest 
Alaska (Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1970), 157. 

8 Bergsland, Aleut Dictionary, 254. 

9 Richard Henry Geoghegan and Fredericka I. Martin, The Aleut Language, was the first attempt to 
translate Veniaminov’s original work. 

10 Veniaminov, Notes on the Islands. Also see Knut Bergsland, Aleut Dictionary: Unangam Tunudgusii 


8 





Introduction 


(Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska, 1994) for greater detail on the his¬ 
tory of linguistics of the Aleut language. 

11 There is a good discussion of this topic in the descriptive pamphlet for National Archives microfilm 
publication M720, Alaska File of the Secretary of the Treasury (Washington, DC: National Archives 
and Records Administration, 1968), 1. 

12 Solicitor Edwin W. Sims, U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, states, “This tribunal which 
concluded its labors in Paris in 1893, is usually spoken of as ‘The Paris Tribunal of Arbitration,’ and 
its findings and award as ‘The Award of the Paris Tribunal.’” Edwin W. Sims, Report on the Alaskan 
Fur-Sea Fisheries (Washington, DC: GPO, 1906), 9. We have decided to retain the phrases “Tribunal 
of Arbitration” and “Award of the Tribunal.” 

13 “The Interim Convention on Conservation of North Pacific Fur Seals” was the international agree¬ 
ment under which the fur seal had been harvested commercially since 1957, and the skins were allo¬ 
cated among the signing nations. The convention was signed by Japan, Canada, the Union of Soviet 
Socialist Republics, and the United States. The convention evolved from a series of treaties dating 
back to 1891 beginning with the Modus Vivendi which placed a temporary hold on pelagic and land 
killing of fur seals except by those Natives relying upon the fur seal for subsistence. The Modus was 
followed by a treaty signed on Feb. 29, 1892, between Great Britain and the United States; see also 
Victor B. Scheffer, Clifford H. Fiscus, and Ethel I. Todd, Flistory of Scientific Study and Management 
of the Alaskan Fur Seal, Callorhinus ursinus, 1786-1964, NOAA Tech. Rep. NMFS SSRF-780 
(Washington, DC: GPO, 1984), 10). Two decades subsequently, the “Fur-Seal Treaty of 1911” was 
concluded among the United States, Russia, Japan, and Great Britain on behalf of Canada. Japan 
withdrew from the convention during Oct. 1941. Not until 1955 did the four signatory nations 
reconvene to renegotiate a treaty. The result became “The Interim Convention on Conservation of 
North Pacific Fur Seals of 1957.” The convention ended in 1983, when the U.S. Senate failed to ratify 
it. At that time, the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 dictated the handling and management 
of the northern fur seal. 

14 Hugh H. McIntyre and Charles Bryant were the first two special agents assigned to the Pribilof 
Islands by the Treasury Department, during 1868-9. However, McIntyre did not spend a consider¬ 
able amount of time on the Pribilof Islands in performance of that duty, as his duty required him to 
travel throughout greater Alaska. In 1870, McIntyre worked for the Alaska Commercial Company, 
the government’s first lessee to harvest the fur seals. Therefore, McIntyre’s biography is presented 
among the larger body of biographies. 



Flome of the Alaska Commercial 
Company, 1906. (Samuel P. 
Johnston), Alaska Commercial 
Company 1868-1940, A More 
or Less “Documented” History, 
Evidenced by Papers from 
Governmental Files and Books; 
By Old Letters from Company 
Files; By Newspaper Articles; 

By Memories of Officials and 
Employes [sic] of Long Standing. 


HOMK OF ALASKA COMMKRCIAL COMPANY 

from June . 1871, to .Ipril 18, 1906 

' L 


9 




































































10 













The First Three Managers 


Alexander Milovidov, Captain Charles Bryant, and Samuel Falconer represent 
the outgoing and incoming administrations of the Russian-American Company and the 
United States government, respectively, on the Pribilof Islands, Alaska, following the ces¬ 
sion of Russian America in 1867. During the 1867-1870 interregnum, the administration 
of the Seal Islands was chaotic and nearly lawless. The Department of War had respon¬ 
sibility for maintaining order and the welfare of the Natives on the islands. The Treasury 
Department was to protect the government’s fur-seal assets and ensure the collection of 
appropriate taxes. Former Russian-American Company Manager Alexander Milovidov, 
living on St. Paul Island, brought some stability during the transition period. The U.S. 
Army detailed soldiers to the islands to maintain peace, but the records reviewed by the 
authors did not indicate that any of these military men were exceptional individuals. In 
1868-69, the Treasury sent Captain Charles Bryant and Hugh McIntyre to collect infor¬ 
mation and give advice on how best to protect the nation’s revenue-bearing interests in 
Alaska, including its fur-seal assets. McIntyre spent little time on the Pribilof Islands, 
as he also traveled about the Territory of Alaska to attend to similar duties. In 1870, 
the Treasury Department was directed to administer the Pribilof Islands, and the War 
Department was withdrawn. The Treasury sent Agent Charles Bryant, who previously 
served as a revenue agent, to reside on St. Paul Island to represent the nation’s admin¬ 
istrative interests. Samuel Falconer was selected to be Bryant’s assistant agent, residing 
on St. George Island. During that time the Treasury also awarded a lease to the Alaska 
Commercial Company to manage the fur-seal harvest and to look after the welfare of the 
Aleuts on the islands. 


1 1 


11 


Pribilof Islands: The People 



M 


Photographer Hugh H. McIntyre described this photo as depicting “all of the American citizens” on 
St. Paul Island, in 1872. Left to right: Henry Wood Elliott, Alexandra Milovidov Elliott (daughter of 
Alexander Milovidov), Elizabeth Fish (teacher), Janetta Pierce (niece of Charles and Hanna Bryant), 
Charles P. Fish (meteorologist), Emma Lucy McIntyre, Charles Bryant (government agent), and Hanna 
Bryant. (Courtesy Hugh McIntyre, grandson of photographer Hugh Henry McIntyre.) 


12 





The First Three Managers ♦ Milovidov 


Alexander Milovidov ( 1821-1870) 

(Melovidov, Melividov, Melovidoff, Melividof, Melovedoff ) 1 

Russian-American Company, Manager, ca. 1860-1867 
Chief, St. Paul Island, 1867-1870 

Genealogy 2 

Alexander Milovidov, the son of Alfei Gavrilov Milovidov (1789-1840) and Nadezhda 
Ulitovskii Milovidov, 3 was born August 21, 1821, in Sitka, Alaska. Alfei Gavrilov 
Milovidov, a Russian-American Company employee, had emigrated from Moscow to 
Russian America in 1815. 4 

Alexander married Alexandra Mikailova Kaminskii. Alexandra was born at Fort Ross, 
California, in 1838. She was the daughter of Mikhail Ivanov Kaminskii (Kamenskii) and 
an unnamed woman he married at the Ross Colony. Fort Ross records state that Mikhail 
Kaminskii’s wife was an Indian; however, the Russian-American Company populated 
their Fort Ross colony with Aleuts, Alutiiqs, and Kenaitze (Athabascans), although other 
Native Americans may have lived there. All Native Americans residing at Ft. Ross were 
identified with the “Indian” descriptor. 5 Alexander Milovidov died on St. Paul Island, 
Alaska, on October 5, 1870. 

Alexandra’s father, Mikhail Kaminskii (Kamenskii), a burgher of St. Petersburg, 
Russia, had a vocation as a prikashchik (Russian: administrator or manager) at the Ross 



FORT U03S—VIEW FUUM THE I.^MUSU. 


Fort Ross, where mother Alexandra Kaminskii Milovidov (1838—1895) was born. (Harpers New 
Monthly Magazine, 195. Vol. 66, no. 392, January 1883.) 


13 














Pribilof Islands: The People 


Colony in California. Mikhail resided at the Ross Colony from 1829 until 1841, when he 
was sent to Novo-Arkhangel’sk (Sitka). 6 

Alexandra Milovidov had a brother named Grigorii Kamenskii. Alexandra’s death 
was described by the St. Paul Island Agent in his log: 

Alexandra Milovidov died Monday, August 19, 1895, on St. Paul Island, at the residence 
other son Anton Melovidov. The deceased has been ill of consumption for the past year 
and her death was not unexpected. Simeon Melovidov local school teacher and son of the 
above requested that school be dismissed until the burial of his mother which request was 
granted. 7 

Wednesday, Aug. 21, 1895. The funeral of Mrs. Alexandra Melovidov who died last Monday 
took place at 2 p.m. this afternoon from her late residence and was largely attended. 8 


[i]Alexander Milovidov 

Alexander Milovidov, b. August 21, 1821, Sitka, Russian America; d. October 5, 1870, St. Paul 

Island, Alaska 

m. Alexandra Kaminskii, b. 1838, Fort Ross, California; d. August 19, 1895, St. Paul Island, 

Alaska 

[2] Alexandra, b. March 26, 1856, Kodiak, Russian America; d. 1949, California 

[3] Anton, b. 1857, Kodiak, Russian America; d. June 5, 1896, St. Paul Island, Alaska 

[4] Marcia, 9 b. January 1864, St. Paul Island, Russian America; d. circa 1907, Unalaska 

[5] Simeon Alexander, b. February 15, 1867, Sitka, Russian America; d. March 14, 1948, Los 

Angeles, California 

[6] Alexander, b. September 2, 1874, St. Paul Island, Alaska; d. October 28, 1914, St. Paul 

Island, Alaska 

Biographical Sketch 

At some time between 1859 and 1861, Russian-American Company Governor Iogan 
Khaltusovich (Ivan Vasilevich) Furuhjelm (1859-63) ordered Alexander Milovidov, a 
Creole, to replace Ivan Repin as manager of the Seal Islands. Repin’s brutal behavior had 
demoralized the Aleut workforce and inhibited their productivity. Milovidov arrived in 
the spring of 1861. His Russian superiors strongly impressed upon Milovidov that he 
should strive to follow in the footsteps of former Manager Kass'ian Shaiashnikov, 10 who 
had died not long before (circa 1860). Shaiashnikov was hailed as a genius and a saint, 
and Milovidov was exhorted to perform his duties as sensibly, efficiently, faithfully and 
accurately as Shaiashnikov had done. He was advised to live so righteously that his sub¬ 
ordinates would obey him out of respect and love, as they had followed Shaiashnikov’s 
leadership. Corporal punishment was forbidden; after Repin, no manager had power as 
judge, and all offenders faced trial by naval officers commanding the annual supply ship. 

Milovidov inherited many pressing duties neglected by Repin. Most urgent among 
them included responding to grievances levied by Native sealers from Kodiak and the 
Aleutians demanding to leave the Seal Islands and return to their homes. Milovidov “was 
to remind these petitioners that life everywhere was hard but easiest on the Seal Islands 
where provisions were plentiful and wages the highest in the colony.” 11 


14 






The First Three Managers ♦ Milovidov 


Although reprimanded in 1864 for filling only half an order for 20,000 dry skins, a 
failure probably due to the weather, Milovidov’s comportment pleased his superiors and 
in 1866 they paid him a bonus of 500 rubles. 12 

In 1868, the year after the U.S. purchase of Alaska, Hayward Hutchinson of 
Hutchinson, Kohl, & Company, arranged for a census of the St. Paul Island Native com¬ 
munity. 13 In the census, Alexander Milovidov and his family are at the head of the list 
and listed as Creoles. The United States government conducted its first census in St. Paul 
Island on July 1, 1870. Although Alexander Milovidov didn’t die until October 1870, his 
wife Alexandra is listed as a widow in the July 1870 census. 14 Following Alexander’s death, 
his eldest son, Anton, became the head of the household. 

The former head of the family Alexander Melovedoff (deceased), was a Russian Creole 
residing on the Island as Storekeeper for the Russian American Fur Company at the time 
of the transfer of the Territory to the United States and removed to Sitka in 1867, where he 
subsequently became an American Citizen under the Treaty of Transfer, having complied 
with the conditions prescribed by said Treaty, after which he returned to this Island again 
as storekeeper for the Hutchinson Kohl & Co. in the spring of 1868, and died very suddenly 
in October 1870, his family remaining on the island since. A daughter of his named 
Alexandra married Henry W. Elliott, Assistant Treasury Agent in July 1872. 15 

The next island census taken by the government was dated January 1, 1873. The fol¬ 
lowing was reported in the Agent’s Log for the Milovidov family: 

The names are written so as to give the sound as they are pronounced in Russian. 

Anton Meeloveedoff born 1857 in Kodiak, 18 years old 
Alexandra, his mother, born California, 38 yrs old 
Simeon, his brother, born Sitka, 6 years old 
Marcia, his sister, born St. Paul, 8 years old 
Solomayah, adopted in the family, 16 years old 16 

Alexander Milovidov’s life story, although brief, was one of opportunity and in¬ 
trigue at the time of transition from Russian to American sovereignty. Opportunity came 
through his involvement with Captain Gustave Nybom (see Nybom’s biography) and the 
newly formed Hansen, Nybom, & Co. following the demise of his employer, the Russian- 
American Company. Some intrigue between Nybom and the Milovidov family was evi¬ 
dent in a 1922 letter from Henry Elliott to his oldest daughter, Grace, whom Elliott af¬ 
fectionately called “Appy.” In the letter, Elliott relayed his knowledge of the family story 
involving Grace’s grandfather Alexander Milovidov and Gustave Niebaum (Nybom). 

Dear Appy: You ask about that debt of Capt Niebaum to Mother’s father. The exact status 
of it, I never could get from anyone; but this much came to me quite direct. When Alaska 
was transferred Oct. 1867, to the possession of the U.S.A., Capt. Niebaum was in command 
of a small vessel belonging to the Russian American Company which was busy supplying 
the Seal Islands with store and supplies from the Sitka depot and bringing the salted seal 
skins down from the islands to Sitka. When the Russian American Co. at Sitka sold all of 
its outfit to Hutchinson, Kohl & Co. of San Francisco Oct. 1867, it covered some 67,000 salt 
[sic] seal skins then in the warehouse on St. Paul’s Island. 

It seems, however, that Mother’s father, who was the “Governor” and Russian agent in 
charge of the islands, took some 70,000 seal skins during the summer of 1867, which 
were not listed in this Sitkan inventory or bill of sale to Hutchinson Kohl and Co. Captain 
Niebaum with Melividov’s consent put these skins into his vessel, and had them under 


15 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


hatches before Hutchinson, Kohl Co.’s steamer, the Fideliter , arrived at the islands, and 
took the 67,000 salt skins which had been taken in 1866 and were lying in the salt houses 
on the islands. The Fideliter arrived later in March 1868, she took the 67,000 skins aboard 
and learned of the other 70,000 which had been taken on board of Niebaum’s vessel. An 
understanding was made then between Niebaum, Melividov and Hutchinson, Kohl. & Co., 
whereby Niebaum and Melividov were to have half the proceeds of the sale of those 70,000 
skins (they were then worth about $3.00 per skin). 

Mother’s father, Melividov died a few weeks after this deal was made 17 and Captain 
Niebaum was the only witness or surviving partner to that deal. I never could find out the 
details. Mrs. Melividov (Mother's mother), never got more than $5,000 or $6,000 from 
Hutchinson Kohl & Co. She ought to have received at least $40,000 and would have done 
so if Melividov had not suddenly died just as that deal was made. 

I did not know anything about this Niebaum-Melividov deal until long after I married 
Mother. I incidentally learned of it from Capt. Niebaum’s partners Sloss and Capt. Kohl in 
the Alaska Commercial Co. along as late as 1881 or 1882. Then, in 1890,1 asked Dr. H. H. 
McIntyre about it when I met him here. He told me substantially what I have stated at the 
opening of this subject above. I am satisfied that Mrs. Melividov never got what was really 
coming to her and of course there are no records which would enable any one to get it for 
her or her heirs. 18 


[2] Alexandra (aka Aleksandra) Milovidov (Melovidoff) 


Genealogy 


Alexandra Milovidov, b. March. 27, 1856, Kodiak, Russian America; d. 1949 


m. Henry W. Elliott (July 21, 1872), St. Paul Island, Unalaska Diocese 


[2a] Grace 
[2b] Flora 
[2c] Marsha 
[2d] Frank 
[2e] Ruth 
[2f] Edith 
[2g] Narene 
[2h] Lionel 
[2i] John 
[2j] Louise 19 

(Note: Alexandra Milovidov Elliott’s biography is 
presented under the surname of “Elliott.”) 


Alexandra Milovidov (1838-1895) and granddaugh¬ 
ter (Grace Elliott?). (NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, 
Anchorage. Photo: Abial P. Loud, ca. 1887. RG 57, Charts 
and Photographs, no. 18.) 



16 















The First Three Managers ♦ Milovidov 


[3] Anton Milovidov (Melovidof, Melovedoff) 


Genealogy 

According to the St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1896: 

“Anton Melividof [sic] died this afternoon about 4 p.m. He leaves 3 orphan daughters, 
Alexandra, Marcia and Olga: Olga is at present with her Aunt Mrs. ShaiashnikofF at Atka. 
Alexandra and Marcia are at St. Paul and have become dependents and charges of the 
lessees.” 20 

Anton Milovidov, b. 1857, Kodiak, Russian America; d. June 5, 1896, St. Paul Island, Alaska 
m. Agripina Safematoff, 1876, Unalaska, Alaska; 21 b. Atka, Alaska 

d. October 25, 1890. “Mrs. Antone Melevidof, St. Paul Is.,... buried October 28 with whole 
Is. population present and participating in the ceremony.” 22 

[3a] Alexander, b. December 24, 1876. Hamden W. McIntyre, godfather 
d. April 2, 1879, St. Paul Island, Alaska 23 
[3b] Alexandra, b. 1882, St. Paul Island, Alaska 
[3c] Olga, b. 1886, St. Paul Island, Alaska 
[3d] Marcia, b. June 25, 1887, St. Paul Island, Alaska 


Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Anton Milovidov emulated his father as an intel¬ 
ligent and demonstrated leader. As an employee 
of the North American Commercial Company, he 
deposed for the Fur-Seal Arbitration, which con¬ 
vened to settle an international controversy over 
the rights to and manner of harvesting fur seals. 
Excerpts from his deposition offer a glimpse into 
his life on St. Paul Island. 

I [Anton Melovedoff] am 38 years of age and I 
was born on Kodiak Island, Alaska. I came to St. 
Paul Island in 1864, the first time, and in 1869 the 
second time. I have resided here since 1869 and I 
have been constantly employed among the Alaskan 
fur-seals in all that time. I have had a large and 
varied experience in all the details of the business 
as it has been carried out on St. Paul Island, and I 
have done service in all the departments from the 
work of a boy to that of First Chief of the Island. 

I can read and write the English, Russian, and 
Aleut languages and I can interpret them into one 
another. I have read a considerable amount of the 
controversies on the Seal Question.... I became 
First Chief in 1884, which office I resigned in 1891. 



Anton Milovidov. (NARA, Pacific Alaska 
Region, Anchorage. Photo: Abial P. Loud, 
ca. 1887. RG 57, Charts and Photographs, 
no. 15.) 


In the Russian times, before 1868, the seals were always driven across the Island of St. Paul 
from North East Point to the village salt house—a distance of 12 1/2 miles—but when the 
Alaska Commercial Company leased the islands they stopped long driving and built salt 
houses near to the hauling grounds, so that by 1879 no seals were driven more than 2 miles. 


17 















Pribilof Islands: The People 


The killing of females [fur seal] is a crime on St. Paul Island, and our Church teaches that it 
is a sin to kill one, and our people know that the death of a cow seal means one pup less for 
meat in years to come. 24 

As Anton Milovidov stated in his deposition, he became first chief in 1884; he lost 
his position on September 16, 1885, but regained it on June 10, 1887. 25 He again lost the 
first chief’s position in 1891 because, as he stated in his deposition for the International 
Tribunal of Arbitration, he was “working in the interests of the Company rather than that 
of the Government.” 26 



Left to right: Anton Milovidov, Alex Hanson, Simeon Milovidov. 
(Courtesy TDX Corporation.) 


[4] Marcia Milovidov (Melovidov) 

Genealogy 

Marcia Milovidov, b. January 1864, St. Paul Island, Russian America; d. ca. 1907, Unalaska Vil¬ 
lage, Unalaska, Alaska 

m. Alexander I. Shaiashnikov (Shaiashnikoff) (ca. 1880), Unalaska; b. August 1858, Unalaska; 
son of Father Innokentii Shaiashnikov and Mariia Alekseev 

[4a] Maria Shaiashnikov, b. 1882 Unalaska 

Maicia Milovidov married Alexander (Aleksandr) Shaiashnikov 27 of the prominent 
Shaiashnikov family on July 30,1879, after leaving St. Paul Island with her family to visit at 
Unalaska. She returned to St. Paul annually during the sealing season to visit her mother 
and othet lelatives. Marcia welcomed nieces and nephews to live with her at Unalaska, 
including Olga Milovidov, her brother Anton’s daughter; Nadieda Shaiashnikov, her god¬ 
child and daughter of Assistant Priest Zachar Shaiashnikov; and Tatiana, whom she ad- 


18 





The First Three Managers ♦ Milovidov 


opted on June 2, 1887. On August 15, 1888, Marcia agreed to care for a St. Paul Island girl 
named Ellen Krukoff, orphaned with the death of her mother, Natalie Krukoff. In 1890, 
niece Nadieda returned to St. Paul to live with her uncle, the Rev. Paul Shaiashnikov, 
who agreed to support her. Marcia also cared for Shaiashnikoff’s nephew Nicolas, born 
November 1890, and niece Tewska, born January 1892. Both children were born at 
Unalaska. 

Following Marcia’s death in 1907, Alexander Shaiashnikov married a nineteen-year- 
old woman named Ephresenia. The couple had five children: Inakenti, William, Nicoli, 
Angelina, and Maria. Alexander Shaiashnikov, age 73, again had become a widower by 
1930. 28 


[5] Simeon Alexander Milovidov (Melovidov, Melovidoff) 

Genealogy 

Simeon Alexander Milovidov b. February 15, 1867, Sitka, Russian America; d. March 14, 1948, 
Los Angeles County, California 

m. Alexandra Diakanov (spring 1891), Unalaska Diocese; b. February 1867, Akutan, Russian 
America. Her father born in Finland, mother born in Russian America 29 

[5a] Margaret, b. March 18, 1892, St. Paul Island, Alaska. “There is born to Simeon Meli- 
vedov and wife a daughter afterwards christened with the name “Ludmilla.” 30 

d. January 4, 1972, San Mateo, California 

m. Ulderic Peter Peloquin, b. June 29, 1890, Westbrook, Maine; d. November 14, 

1976, San Mateo, California 

[5a-l] Elmer Uldrick Peloquin, b. July 30, 1916; d. January 12, 1993, Napa, California 

[5a-2] Janette Theodora Peloquin, b. January 1918; d. October 14, 1997, San Mateo, 
California 31 

[5a—3] Flora Margaret Peloquin (Beltrami), b. January 7, 1920; d. January 17, 1987, 
Sonoma, California 

[5b] Frank Christopher, b. August 11, 1894, St. Paul Island, Alaska; d. August 5, 1966, 
Pasadena, California 

m. Clara Elva Lieke, b. January 4, 1895, Pennsylvania; d. December 15, 1984, Shasta, 
California 

Family living in Pasadena, California, during the 1930 U.S. Census; children identi¬ 
fied included: 

[5b—1] Vivian J., b. 1921, California 
[5b-2] Beverly L„ b. 1922, California 
[5b—3 Elva F., b. 1929, California 

[5c] Alexander Simeon, b. May 28, 1896, St. Paul Island, Alaska; d. May 17, 1961, Tacoma, 
Washington (buried Mt. View Cemetery, Tacoma, Washington) 

m.l. Nancy Elizabeth James (1920), b. 1903 in Wales, United Kingdom; d. February 
1983, Tacoma, Washington 
[5c-1] Alexander “Alex” Steele 

b. 1924, Lawrence, Kansas 

m.l. Shirlee Huettner (1949), b. July 31, 1923 Yakima, Washington; d. Octo¬ 
ber 30, 1992, Seattle, Washington 
m.2. Elisabeth Merkl Tebeau (1980), b. 1935, Germany 


19 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


[5c-2] Margaret “Margarie” Irene, b. 1921 
m. Edward Simpson 

m.2. Lucille Burrell (1930), b. April 5, 1907; d. April 8, 1999 
[5d] Simeon Alexander Jr., b. June 7, 1899; d. April 26, 1971, San Francisco, California 
m. Cills of Contra Costa County, California 32 

[5d—1 ] Margaret Ann, b. May 24, 1946, San Francisco; d. March 23, 1977, San Diego, 
California 33 

Biographical Sketch 

Simeon Alexander Milovidov received his teacher training at Oakmont College, San 
Francisco, California. 34 

In 1888, at the age of twenty-one, Simeon A. Milovidov testified before the House 
Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries during its investigation of the Alaska 
Commercial Company. 35 He said that he had been born at Sitka and moved to St. Paul 
Island at three months of age. He began his island education at the age of five and con¬ 
tinued until age fifteen, learning arithmetic and how to read and write English at the St. 
Paul school. During his early adulthood, the government monitored Simeon Alexander 
Milovidov s travels and role as an island school teacher. The following notations regarding 
Simeon’s travels are based on comments in the St. Paul Island Agents’ Logs and respective 
agents’ annual reports. 

August 4, 1886: departed for college at age 19. 

May 31, 1887: returned from school at Napa [California]. 36 

August 18, 1888: departed for the winter on steamer St. Paul to attend 
school in San Francisco. 

June 1, 1889: returned on steamer St. Paul from San Francisco. 

September 2, 1889: began teaching on St. Paul Island. 

July 21, 1889: Anton & Simeon buy instruments for St. Paul Island band. 

August 10, 1890: embarked for San Francisco on the Arago. 

June 25, 1891: Simeon arrived at St. Paul Island, Alaska, with his wife on 
steamer St. Paul. 

September 2, 1891-April 28, 1911: Simeon served as the school teacher on 
St. Paul Island. 

December 3, 1891 (Agent Williams’ annual report 37 ): “Mr. Simeon 

Melivedoff [sic], a native sealer has been placed in charge of the schools 
on St. Paul Island by the lessees. His compensation, I understand, has 
been fixed at $50 per month.” 

January 1, 1892: Simeon Melovidov, the teacher, made his school report 
today for the months of September, October, November and December, 
showing an attendance of 50 pupils; boys 20 and girls 30, total 50. 

Average attendance 99 percent. Branches taught—Spelling, Reading, 

Writing, Geography and Arithmetic. 38 

Simeon Alexander Milovidov’s son, Alexander Simeon [5c], left St. Paul Island on June 
29, 1911, to attend the Chemawa Indian School at Salem, Oregon. 39 Then on August 25, 
1911, Simeon Alexander Milovidov [5] and the rest of the family (wife Alexandra, daugh¬ 
ter Margaret, sons Frank and Simeon Jr., and Marcia, daughter of his brother Anton who 
died in 1896) departed St. Paul Island aboard the vessel Homer bound for San Francisco. 


20 





The First Three Managers ♦ Milovidov 


The pending event and the departure were noted in the 
St. Paul Agent’s Log. 

Mr. Simeon Melovidof, the school teacher here for many 
years, will remove with his family to the States for the 
purpose of putting his children into school and otherwise 
providing for their future. 40 

Simeon Alexander Milovidov began teaching at St. 

Paul Island during the fall of 1889, and continued to 
serve the community until 1911. Other than what the 
agent reported as shown above, we are curious as to 
why the Milovidov family chose to leave the Pribilofs 
in 1911. The family’s youngest child, Simeon Jr., was 
thirteen years old at the time of their move, and an 
eighth grade education was the norm for the time on 
the Pribilofs and in America. Also, the government 
provided lodging and most of the food, and the elder 
Simeon’s salary was $1,200 per annum, which was the same as the island’s physician, H. 
C. Mills. 41 We conclude that Simeon had saved a considerable sum of money, as many 
of the islands’ Aleut workers had, 42 and may have been drawn to California where his 
mother had been born, and where his sister, Alexandra Elliott, age seventy, was living in 
Pleasanton with her daughter Grace Elliott, age fifty. He may also have been lured to a 
nearby vineyard developed by his former Alaska Commercial Company bosses Gustave 
Niebaum and Hamden McIntyre, both of whom had worked at St. Paul Island. 

The 1920 U.S. Census placed the family in Sonoma, California, where Simeon, then 
fifty-two, owned a poultry farm located at I Street Extension. Simeon Jr. married Nancy 
Elizabeth James, and the couple resided at the home of Simeon Sr. along with Simeon Jr.’s 



Simeon Alexander Milovidov, July 
1892. (BCA, Richard Maynard 
Coll., F-077S4.) 



St. Paul Island orchestra of vio¬ 
lins, cello, bass, drum, and trum¬ 
pet. Anton Milovidov (1), drum¬ 
mer; Simeon Milovidov (2); Nicoli 
Krukoff (3); Alex Hanson (4); and 
Karp Buouterin (5). (NAA, Joseph 
Stanley-Brown Lantern Slide 
Coll., lot 54-382.) 




21 
















Pribilof Islands: The People 


brother Frank. Frank married Clara Lieke. Sister Margaret had married Ulderic Peloquin, 
and the couple had three children whom they named Elmer, Jeannette, and Flora. 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Simeon Alexander Milovidov, as had his brother Anton, deposed for the International 
Tribunal of Arbitration. Simeon Alexander’s deposition provides some autobiographical 
material. 

I am twenty five years of age, and I was born at Sitka, Alaska. I came to St. Paul Island in 
1867 and resided here ever since. I have a practical knowledge of and am familiar with 
the fur-seal industry as it is carried out on St. Paul Island. I became an able sealer in 1879, 
and worked at it ever since, except in the winters, when I was at school. I have driven seals 
and skinned them and prepared the skins for shipment. I am at present the school teacher 
on St. Paul Island, and I can read and write English and Russian, as well as the Aleut 
language. 43 

[ 5 c] Alexander Simeon Milovidov (Melovidov, Melovidoff) 

Genealogy 

Alexander Simeon Milovidov met Nancy Elizabeth James in England during World 
War I while in the U.S. Navy. Nancy immigrated to the United States after the war, and 
they married at Lawrence, Kansas . 44 

Two children were born to the union of Alexander Simeon and Nancy James: 
Alexander “Alex” Steele and Margaret “Margarie” Irene. 

Biographical Sketch 

Alexander Simeon’s love of music was developed at an early age with his family’s en¬ 
couragement. In 1889, his father Simeon Alexander [5] and his Uncle Anton Milovidov 
[3] had bought violins and played in the St. Paul Island Band. Alexander Simeon started 
his musical career while attending the Chemawa Indian School at Salem, Oregon. He 
graduated from Chemawa circa 1915. Alexander Simeon Milovidov became second vio¬ 
linist with the Indian String Quartet and toured during 1917 with the Chautauqua lec¬ 
turer Richard H. Kennedy . 45 

The 1920 U.S. Census recorded Alexander Simeon living in Kansas City, Missouri. 
He worked as a printer (a printer’s apprentice, according to his son Alexander Steele 
[5ci]) at a publishing company. As a professional musician, he performed in the Orpheum 
Circuit, in vaudeville, and in Hollywood movies. His music experience became a step- 
pingstone for his life’s later work as a teacher. He taught music at the Haskell Institute in 
Lawrence, Kansas , 46 in Oregon, and finally in Tacoma, Washington , 47 where he became 
well known as the high school music teacher and band leader. He developed a junior sym¬ 
phony orchestra and taught all orchestra and band instruments including the Hawaiian 
and Spanish guitar . 48 

Alexander Simeon’s son, Alex Steele Melovidoff, enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps 
in December 1943. He received his initial training at Iowa State Teacher’s College, Cedar 


22 








The First Three Managers ♦ Milovidov 


Falls, Iowa, then went for primary flight training at Oxnard, California, and finished his 
training at Stockton, California. He was assigned to the Las Vegas Army Airfield to fly 
B-17 s and later B-24’s. In November 1944, Alex was shot down in Austria. The Germans 
held him as a prisoner of war until May of 1945. 49 



Alexander Simeon Melovidoff was the founder and president of the Tacoma Conservatory of Music. 
For many years he conducted a summer band concert series at Point Defiance Park. Mr. Melovidoff is 
depicted in the photograph with “his All-Tacoma Band as they appeared in 1947. Their first concert in 
the park that year was on June 29th. They played 15 numbers!’ (“Tacoma Band Starts Concert Season 
Next Sunday!’ Tacoma Times, June 26, 1947, 13. Courtesy Tacoma Public Library 14494.) 



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«: Irvji.m String Quartet. with Richard H. Kennedy »» 
Jt l W lecturer and reader, hangs to the Chautauqua and Lyceum 
public an unusual and unique attraction They measure up 
to the highest xtndird of entertainment and should he heartily 
recommended to committees For Chautauqua they fill the program 
for afternoon and evening The hrst wrrUt i tf the great mute masters 
urc presented by thoc Indian! with wonderful skill and fine inter¬ 
pretation Their Indian music expresses all the moods of their pnm 
itive freef a there It takes you hack into his iribnl settlement and 
gives the story of ha life through his weird and fascinating musk. 

The Quartet is composed entirely of young American Indians 
whose tirvlrrvanding of t he finenevs of their music hiubccn developed 
to the greatest possible degree They hove been educated in govern- 
ment schools Koch member of the <Juana represents a different 
tribe Fred Cardin fir« violin, comes from the Quapaw tnhe in Okla¬ 
homa: Alex Mclovidov. second violin, from IVihilof Islands n the 
Birring Sea. and u a member of the Aleut trihe: William Palin, viabi 
from the Flathead tribe of Montana and Willie Reddle. cello, is a 
member of the Hydoh tnbe of Wrangell Alaska They arc a moat 
rare combination of talent arxl give such expression tothcr music that 
they never fail to enthuse and delight their audience*. 

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Program guide introduc¬ 
ing the “Indian String 
Quartet” and “Alex 
Melovidov, second violin, 
from Pribilof Islands!’ 


23 









































Pribilof Islands: The People 


Leaf from a Chautauqua program guide introducing “Mr. Alex Melovidov, Second Violin” 



Alex Steele Melovidoff being interviewed at 
his home in Lakewood, Washington, about 
his father, Alexander Simeon Melovidoff. 
Left to right: Alex, Paul Hillman, John 
Brooks (cameraman), and Betty A. 

Lindsay, November 10, 2004. (Photo: John 
A. Lindsay, NOAA.) 


24 








The First Three Managers ♦ Milovidov- Bryant 


[ 6 ] Alexander Milovidov 

Alexander Milovidov, b. September 2, 1874, St. Paul Island, Alaska; d. October 28, 1914, St. Paul 
Island, Alaska 

m. Salome Pahomoff (August 1892), Unalaska, Alaska; daughter of Osse and Varvarie PahomofF 
b. August 15, 1875, St. Paul Island, Alaska 

The 1892 government Agent’s Log for St. Paul Island recorded Alexander Milovidov s 
quest for a wife. On August 14, “Alex Melovidov went on board the Corwin on his way to 
Unalaska in search of a wife.” In two short weeks, he returned married to a St. Paul girl 
who had been at school in Unalaska. On September 4th the Steamer Bertha arrived at St. 
Paul Island “with mail and the following people were landed: Alexander Melovidov and 
wife nee Salome Pohomoff (from the school at Unalaska).” 

[6a] Antone, b. December 19, 1893, St. Paul Island, Alaska 

m. Alexandra Vickalof, (July 20, 1913), Unalaska; b. May 3, 1895, St. George Island, Alaska 

[6a-l] Natalie, b. August 30, 1914, St. Paul Island, Alaska 

[6a—2] Ilarion, b. November 1919 

[6a-3] Agrippina, b. July 3, 1924 

[6a—4] Alexander, b. August 26, 1926 

m. Susan (surname and date unknown) 

Children: Myron, Ivan, Doreen, Charles, Anthony, Angelina, Melanie 
[6b] Alexandra, b. February 13, 1902, St. Paul Island, Alaska 
[6c] Altai, b. June 13, 1903, St. Paul Island, Alaska 
[6d] Joseph, b. March 10, 1907, St. Paul Island, Alaska 
[6e] Marcia, b. October 23, 1909, St. Paul Island, Alaska 
[6f] Vincent, b. October 21, 1910, St. Paul Island, Alaska 


Charles Bryant ( 1820 - 1903 ) 

Whaling Captain 

Special Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Territory of Alaska, 1868-1869 
Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Seal Islands, 1870-1877 

Genealogy 

Charles Bryant, the son of William Bryant and Mary (Johnson) Bryant, was born May 
9, 1820, in Rochester, Plymouth County, Massachusetts. In 1851, midway through the 
twenty-one years he spent at sea as a whaler, Charles Bryant married Hannah Eldridge 
(1822-1892), the daughter of Peleg Eldridge and Hannah (Briggs) Eldridge of Taunton, 
Massachusetts. Charles and Hannah Bryant had no children of their own, but raised their 
niece Janetta Pierce, daughter of Josiah Pierce and Hannah (Bryant) Pierce. 50 Captain 
Charles Bryant died on July 2,1903, aged 83. Charles Bryant is buried in the Bryant family 
plot in the Sherman Cemetery at Rochester, Massachusetts. 51 


25 




Pribilof Islands: The People 



Captain Charles Bryant’s family gravesite, Sherman Cemetery, Rochester, Massachusetts, October 
2003. (Photo: John A. Lindsay, NOAA.) 


Biographical Sketch 

Captain Charles Bryant testified in Washington, D.C., on March 20, 1876, before the 
Committee of Ways and Means of the U.S. House of Representatives. The committee 
had directed an investigation into matters relating to the lease granted to the Alaska 
Commercial Company for the right to kill fur seals on the Pribilof Islands. 

My name is Charles Bryant: my occupation at the time of my appointment was farming, 
but the principal occupation of my life-time has been catching whales; my place of 
residence was Fairhaven, Mass.... I went first [to the Pribilofs] in April of 1869 and 
remained until September as Treasury agent of the Government.... In the summer of 
1870,1 went out as special agent to relieve the necessities of the natives and take care of 
them. In consequence of all trade being interdicted there, and their not being allowed to 
kill seals, they were in a condition of great want and necessity. I was sent by the Secretary 
of the Treasury, on the steamer Lincoln, to supply their wants and necessities until such 
time as Congress took action. At the time I left, Congress had taken no action in regard to 
the leasing of the islands. 

(Q)... Suppose any of the natives should want to leave the islands, are they kept there 
against their will? (A) No, sir; they are always at liberty to leave; that is a standing rule. 52 

Charles Bryant first went to sea in 1840 as a twenty-year-old seaman on the Montezuma. 
From 1844 to 1847 he served as a seaman on the Champion and from 1848 to 1850 as 
third mate on the Abraham Barker. He was second mate on the Gideon Howland from 
1850-1853 and captained that vessel from 1853 to 1857, then was captain of the America 
from 1857 until he retired in 1861. Charles Bryant purchased a farm in Fairhaven, Bristol 
County, Massachusetts, where he lived when not at sea. The U.S. Census for 1860, the 
year before he retired from whaling, listed him as a farmer. 

While serving in the Massachusetts legislature in 1867 and 1868, Bryant made the ac¬ 
quaintance of U.S. Senator Charles Sumner, whose April 9, 1867, speech before Congress 
favoring the proposed purchase of Alaska was based in part on letters from Bryant. 53 
Sumner cited Bryants expert knowledge of Alaskan waters, including the “Behring Sea,” 
and that recognition became widespread when newspapers throughout the country 


26 








The First Three Managers ♦ Bryant 


printed Sumner’s now-famous “Speech of Hon. 
Charles Sumner of Massachusetts on the cession 
of Russian America to the United States.” In part, 
Sumner said: 

Here is a letter ... from Charles Bryant, Esq.,... for 
eighteen years acquainted with these seas, where 
he was engaged in the Whale Fishery. After 
mentioning the time at certain places as reason 
for the acquisition of these possessions, he says: 

But the cheapest value, and this alone is worth 
more than the pittance asked for it, consists in the 
extensive Cod and Halibut fish grounds. 54 

Sumner’s speech did not credit Bryant with 
any mention of the fur seal, although Sumner spe¬ 
cifically identified the “Prybelov” islands” 55 and 
recognized their potential value. 56 In the short 
term the Pribilof Islands would provide the most 
valuable natural resource derived from the Alaska 
purchase, and Bryant would help make it so. 

In a letter to an “Esteemed Friend,” Bryant re¬ 
counted his experiences traveling to Alaska in the 
employment of the government, excerpted here: 

Sitka Alaska Jan 5th, 1869 
Esteemed Friend, 



Captain Charles Bryant’s grave¬ 
stone, Sherman Cemetery, Rochester, 
Massachusetts, October 2003. (Photo: 
John A. Lindsay, NOAA.) 


I left New York on the 16 of Sept in the good steamer Ocean Queen with about seven 
hundred passengers two hundred of which were in the first class cabin ... arriving in San 
Francisco Oct 9th having made the run in 2354 days there was plenty of agreeable society 

books, games, music, and dancing on board-Leaving San Francisco Oct 30 after a 

stormy passage we arrived in Sitka Nov 23rd having been 25 days on our passage the 
weather stormy, the sea rough and plenty of seasickness for my colleagues. The Reliance 
is a topsail schooner 240 tons measurement officered by a Capt and four lieutenants and 
manned by forty seamen.... in sixty eight days, I have traversed two oceans traveling eight 
thousand miles and had put the breadth of the whole continent between myself and home 
and here I stood in Alaska [like a] piece of human driftwood borne on the crest of the 
advancing wave of prayers and [thrown] on the remotest bound of civilization but a truce 
to romance [-] stern realities surround us as you will learn before I close. 


... you want to know something about the other subject the resources of the Territory 
here I can only touch points there has been about a million in value carried from here in 
furs which is largely in excess of what the territory can supply without exhaustion, furs are 
now about as high as in San Francisco, its lumber I have not yet seen but two kinds only 
one of very great value the other the common Norway spruce, but of this in future the 
great coal mine about eighty miles from here is immense croping out over a large extent of 
territory close to the shore where there are safe bays and harbors with every natural facility 
for shipping it. But it has proved to [sic] resinous for steamery its intense heat evolved 
burning out furnaces and smokestack to soon when we get an improvement to protect or 
guard against these consequences it will be invaluable. It would be so now for blasting or 
smelting purposes I am told by those who have been to see it that along its face where it has 
been opened its [seams are shaped] like veined marble composed of resin in some places 
six inches in thickness ... You remember what I said about whales taking shelter in the 
straits and bays around these Islands, everything I learn confirms my former convictions 


27 








Pribilof Islands: The People 


all traders report seeing in July August Sept Oct immense numbers so close together as to 
render it unsafe for boats to pass among them but I have seen no one that knows what kind 
they were. 3 

After Captain Bryant’s retirement from the 
Massachusetts legislature on July 30, 1877, he 
acquired and operated the Old Meigs Tavern at 
Mattapoisett, Massachusetts. The tavern was 
built in 1799. 58 He renamed it Bay View Hotel, 
which became the Mattapoisett Inn and since 
2005 has been the Kinsale Inn, advertised as the 
oldest seaside inn in the United States still oper¬ 
ating in its original structure. 59 

A writer named Catherine Cabot befriended 
Charles Bryant at Mattapoisett and interviewed 
him at length, planning to write his biography. 
Cabot expected to derive a considerable sum of 
money from the publication. 60 However, it ap¬ 
pears that she never succeeded in publishing the 
full story, but she did publish the following article 

Charles Bryant at the Bay View Inn in about Bryant in an 1895 issue of New England 

Mattapoisett, Massachusetts. Date un- ,, . 61 T T c . . , ^ . . r> ,, 

, ^ , Magazine. 1 Unfortunately, Captain Bryants re- 

known. (Courtesy Marc Goddu.) * ' r 1 

cords and his autobiography taken by Ms. Cabot 
have disappeared. 


Two other biographies of Captain Bryant were published, in 1897 and 1899; and a 
fourth was written, but not published, by a Mattapoisett historian in 1967. A comparison 
among the last three biographies reveals how historical facts can become altered in time. 
The 1897 biography was written as follows. 




Charles Bryant was born May 9, 1820 in Rochester, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, the 
son of William Bryant and Mary Johnson. He began to learn the sail-maker’s trade in New 
Bedford when sixteen years of age, and worked at it for four years and a half, shipping 
then as a sail-maker on the whaling brig Montezuma which cruised in the Atlantic Ocean, 

and was out eighteen months. His next 
engagement was as boat steerer on the ship 
Julian, also a whaling vessel, which was 
one and a half years out from the home 
port, cruising in the North Pacific. He was 
subsequently engaged as third mate of the 
ship Nimrod, which was out thirty-four 
months in the Pacific Ocean, returning as 
second mate; as second mate on the Ohio, 
which was gone three years in the same 
waters; as mate of the ship Euphrates, which 
was out from port nearly three years; and 
lastly, as mate of the whaling ship John 
Howland, which cruised in the Okhotsk Sea 
Charles Bryant in rocking chair at the and the Arctic Seas, being gone forty-four 

Mattapoisett Inn. Date unknown. (Courtesy months, [continued on p. 38] 

Marc Goddu.) 


28 





The First Three Managers ♦ Bryant 


NEW ENGLAND 

MAGAZINE 



ATED 



CONTENTS 


THE NEW YEAR PEAL . 

Burlington, Vermont . 


• Illustrated. 

ALONG THE DUST-WHITE RIVER ROAD 

RALEIGH’S LOST COLONY 

Illustrated from drawings made in Virginia 

A CHAPTER OF ALASKA . 

Illustratet 


A MEMORY. A Poem 
THE PASSING OF THE SQUIRE 
BY WAY OF PANAMA 
HIDDEN LEDGES. A Poem. 
RADCL 1 FFE COLLEGE 


Illustrated. 

TUNE’S CHERRY TREE. A Story . 

A WAYFARER. A Poem 
THOMAS OF PARKWORTH’S. A Story 

CHRIST CHURCH BELLS . 

Illustrated from drawings by 15 

RECOLLECTIONS OF LOWELL MASON 

Illustrated. 


A Poem . S. Q. Lapins 563 

James Phinney Baxter 565 
11 15S5 by John White. 

. . C. E. Cabot 588 


LOWELL MASON 


EDITOR’S TABLE 


Illustrated 


Annie S. Hawks. — “Along 


OMNIBUS. 

“ Lively Yet,” Harry Romaine. — “ Sixteen,” 

the River’s Reedy Shore,” Arthur Fairfax. — “ Lyra,” James G 
Burnett. 


Frontispiece 

0. G. Benedict 347 


. John E. Butler 596 
. Edward Porritt 597 
Helen Marshall North 602 
. Rosa H. Knorr 608 


Helen Leah Reed 609 


Annie E. P. Searing 625 
. . Susie M. Best 627 

Clifford Hoffman Chase 628 

Ralph Adams Cram 640 
5. Goodhue. 

Rev. S F. Smith 648 
Francis H. Jenks 651 


668 

671 


$3 A YEAR. 


Copyright, 1894, by Warren F. Kellogg. 

Entered at Boston Post Office as Second Class Mail Matter. 


25 c. A NUMBER 


29 






















































Pribilof Islands: The People 


A CHAPTER OF ALASKA. 


REVIOUS to the 
year 1867 , the 
land situated at 
the extreme 
northwest cor- 
nerof our 
North Ameri¬ 
can continent 
was to the peo- 
p 1 e of our 
country practi¬ 
cally unknown. 
It was at that 
time called 
Russian Amer¬ 
ica, and was the 
outpost of its 
parent country, 
its only indus¬ 
try that of the 
fur trade, which was carried on by an 
organized company of traders known 
as the Russian American Fur Com¬ 
pany. In time, as the rapid growth of 
our Pacific coast developed new needs, 
a company was formed in California to 
furnish ice in quantities, to be brought 
from Russian America to the port of San 
Francisco and from there distributed. 
In furtherance of this project the plan 
was conceived by the ice company to 
lease the province from its owners. This 
matter was in due course privately laid 
before the suitable legislators in Wash¬ 
ington, at whose councils the importance 
of its commercial value to our country as 
a source of revenue became more and 
more apparent; and Mr. Seward, then 
our secretary of state, with the far-seeing 
wisdom of able statesmanship, proceeded 
to enter into preliminary negotiations with 
the Russian government, through its min¬ 
ister, Baron Stoeckl, for the purchase of 
Russian America. The matter was prac¬ 
tically confined to the knowledge of the 
two prime ministers and to the few others 
whose interests favored privacy in its 
consideration until the time should be 
688 


Cabot. 

ripe to report it to the senate for rat¬ 
ification. 

Those were troublous times at the 
capital; the senate was watching the 
President's supposed dangerous designs, 
and the people were watching the senate 
and anxiously waiting the issue. But 
amid all the clamor of angry debate, 
Mr. Seward in the State Department was 
quietly preparing to carry out his long- 
cherished plans for the annexation of 
Russian America. The “ 54 0 40 ' or fight ” 
measure of 1846 , which would have carried 
us to the southeast boundary of Russian 
America, had failed through the efforts 
of those opposed to any further northern 
extension of our boundaries. In i 860 , 
in a speech at St. Paul, Mr. Seward, with 
sure prescience, had said : — 

“ Standing here and looking far off into the 
northwest, I see the Russian as he busily occupies 
himself in establishing seaports and towns and 
fortifications on the verge of this continent, as the 
outposts of St. Petersburg, and I can say, ‘ Go 
on and build up your outposts all along the coast, 
up even to the Arctic Ocean; they will yet 
become the outposts of my own country — monu¬ 
ments of the civilization of the United States in 
the northwest.’ ” 

Later, during our civil war, his obser¬ 
vation of the disadvantages under which 
we labored for lack of advanced naval 
outposts strengthened his determination 
to obtain such a foothold of power. And 
now at last, in 1867 , he found the way 
opening before him. Russia was to us 
a friendly neighbor; for her own safety 
she would in no case allow her American 
province to pass into the hands of any 
European power through whom it might 
become to her a future menace. Under 
American control it would be to her a 
safeguard through its more rapid develop¬ 
ment, and to the United States it would 
become an important stronghold for com¬ 
mercial and naval operations on our 
Pacific coast. The subject presented so 
many mutual advantages, instead of con¬ 
flicting interests, that all minor considera- 



30 








The First Three Managers ♦ Bryant 


A CHAPTER OF ALASKA. 589 


tions were easily adjusted ; the two prime 
ministers, Seward and Gortchakof, were 
not long in coming to an agreement, and 
its satisfactory conclusion seemed now 
well assured. 

On Friday evening, March 29, the 
Czar’s consent to the cession of the 
territory was received by the Russian 
minister, who hastened at once to the 
residence of Mr. Seward, as the impor¬ 
tance of the case made it necessary to 
take immediate action before the end of 
the session now near at hand. Charles 
Sumner, then chairman of the com¬ 
mittee on foreign relations, was at once 
summoned, together with the officials 
and secretaries necessary to prepare the 
matter for submission to the senate ; in 
less than two hours the brightly lighted 
windows of the State Department indi¬ 
cated that business was going on there 
as at mid-day; and with so great de¬ 
spatch was it conducted, that by four 
o’clock on Saturday morning the mid¬ 
night treaty was engrossed, signed, sealed 
and ready for transmission by the Presi¬ 
dent.* A few hours iater, when the 
message was announced in the chamber, 
great was the surprise of all when the 
secretary ejaculated rather than read, “A 
treaty for the cession of Russian Amer¬ 
ica,” — a surprise still further increased 
when Mr. Sumner, a leading opponent 
of the President, rose to move favorable 
action, asking that a hearing be assigned 
for it on the following week. At the 
hearing in executive session the treaty 
was almost unanimously confirmed, con¬ 
ditional on an appropriation to be made 
by Congress to pay for the purchase 
within a year. The treaty provided that 
the territory should be surrendered to 
the United States as soon as a qualified 
official should arrive from Russia to per¬ 
form that duty. Count PeterschofF was 
appointed for this purpose; and in Sep¬ 
tember, 1867, accompanied by General 
Rosecranz and the necessary military 
force, he proceeded to Sitka to perform 
the transfer. With the usual ceremonies 
attendant on such occasions, the Russian 

* The above detail of the working out of the midnight 
treaty is substantially as given in the “ Story of the Life 
of|William H. Seward,” by his son. The illustration, 
from the original painting by Leutze, is used by permission 
of- the publishers, Messrs. Derby & Miller, New York, 


flag gave place to our own, and Russian 
America became United States territory. 
At Mr. Sumner’s request, the name Alaska, 
already belonging to the peninsula of that 
country, was retained and adopted as 
that of the whole territory. 

The treaty was ratified April 9, 1867. 
The United States had taken possession 
of the new territory, but had not paid 
for it. Measures were necessary to be 
taken at once to formulate some suitable 
plan of government which could be main¬ 
tained for the best good of the native 
people there belonging and for the 
increase of our own revenue as might 
be. We had acquired a peculiar pos¬ 
session, needing peculiar and hitherto 
untried forms of government. It was 
a crisis in which no one seemed to know 
quite the best thing to be done nor the 
best way to proceed; the most that was 
known of the region was that it was 
unknown and ice-bound. But as in all 
history, the right man, the God-sent 
man, has always been found for the emer¬ 
gency, so in this case, one who had 
retired from his long whaling voyages 
in the Pacific seas, which had furnished 
abundant opportunity for thorough and 
complete observation of every form of 
natural phenomena thereto pertaining, 
whose brain had become a well-filled 
storehouse of valuable knowledge available 
for just this or similar occasion when it 
should arise, who had in the retirement 
of his private life been sought for and 
elected a member of the Massachusetts 
legislature, there becoming acquainted 
with some of the leading men in public 
affairs, and through them with scientific 
experts and with influential Washington 
legislators, thus by successive steps mak¬ 
ing the necessary connecting links in the 
chain of events which was to bind our 
new possession into harmonious and 
suitable relations with already existing 
conditions, and to open out new avenues 
of interest, of profit and of usefulness, — 
this one of all others in our country best 
fitted for the emergency awaiting, after 
his many years of almost unconscious 
preparation, was found well equipped and 
ready for his country’s service at her call 
of need. Upon him devolved the task to 
investigate, to formulate and to carry to 


31 






Pribilof Islands: The People 



590 


32 


THE MIDNIGHT TREATY. FROM THE PAINTING BY LEUTZE. 














The First Three Managers ♦ Bryant 


A CHAPTER 

completion plans for mutual benefit,— 
the work of a statesman and of a philan¬ 
thropist, of a man sound in knowledge 
of the world’s affairs, of good judgment 
and of unimpeachable integrity, unselfish 
and incorruptible. 

Providentially the man and the hour 
had met. Hugh McCulloch, then secre¬ 
tary of the treasury, at the instance of 
several eminent men, after due confer¬ 
ence with Charles Bryant, appointed him 
as special agent subject to the authority 
and supervision of the Treasury Depart¬ 
ment which had assumed charge of affairs 
in our new territory, with instructions to 
proceed to the Pribylov Islands, the 
home of the fur seal industry which had 
proved of so great value to its former 
owners, to investigate the conditions 
there existing, and to report upon the 
necessary steps to be taken for the sub¬ 
sistence of the people and for the pro¬ 
tection and furtherance of our own inter¬ 
ests as well. In this relation Captain 
Bryant, in pursuance of his duties on the 
islands, resided there for several years, 
during four presidential terms, and under 
the supervision of seven successive treas¬ 
ury secretaries, instituting and perfecting 
the various systems of living, of educa¬ 
tion and of industry which have con¬ 
tinued to the present time. It is of him 
in this peculiar relation that the present 
paper treats. 

Born in Plymouth County, Massachu¬ 
setts, of the sturdy Pilgrim stock whose 
independence and integrity impressed its 
character so strongly on the beginnings of 
our Nevv England history, his earlier years 
were passed, like those of all sons of the 
industrious farmers whose occupation was 
confined to achieving not only a liveli¬ 
hood, but the comforts of that time, in 
the multitude of duties more or less 
arduous and shared by all alike, with but 
little schooling except that obtained from 
the open book of nature surrounding 
and enriching the minds of all its pupils 
who had eyes to observe and ability to 
learn its lessons. Doubly fortunate was 
he in the fact that the large farming 
country in which his boyhood years were 
passed was also a seaport (now long since 
in its decadence), whose industry of ship¬ 
building furnished an opportunity for 


OF ALASKA . 591 



CAPTAIN CHARLES BRYANT. 


profitable maintenance to the lads whose 
desires or whose needs prompted them to 
seek for such outside the home life ; and 
beyond this employment the next step out 
and away into the world was by the whal¬ 
ing industry, the source of many large 
fortunes during the thirty years or more 
in which it flourished so prosperously in 
the years following 1830. From the 
farming towns all over New England it 
recruited its workers, offering to them 
attractive inducements to see some part 
of the great world outside of and beyond 
their circumscribed opportunities for 
knowledge; and among others we find 
our country lad, his brain teeming with 
glorious day-dreams of future possibili¬ 
ties, exiling himself from his boyhood 
home with its beloved inmates, hoping 
thus to secure a surer and larger compe¬ 
tence for their future when the disability 
of increasing years should render them 
less able for their laborious and constant 
work. Six voyages were made by him 
during the eighteen years from 1840 to 
1858, covering all latitudes from sixty de¬ 
grees south to the frozen barrier of the 
Northern Arctic Sea in latitude seventy- 
two degrees, through all seas inhabited 


v 


33 









Pribilof Islands: The People 


A CHAPTER OF ALASKA. 


5'J-2 

by whales; and in pursuit of this calling 
he visited most of the various islands 
therein situated, making himself familiar 
in every instance where it was possible 
for him to do so with the manners and 
customs of the people and with their na¬ 
tive language. 

In 1867 and 1868 he was called to the 
Massachusetts legislature to represent the 
district in which he then resided. Here 
again in quite a different field were this 
man’s talents of observation, of well-cul¬ 
tivated memory and of disposition to use¬ 
fulness in whatever line of life-work he 
was called upon to fill to stand him in 



A GROUP OF BEHRING SEA OFFICIALS 
IN 1872. 


good stead. Not lightly did he regard 
the fulfilment of any duty intrusted to his 
care ; and in the pursuance of his official 
duties the impress which he left upon 
the minds of his associates was to 
open up to him further opportunities 
and heretofore undreamed-of possibili¬ 
ties. Here he came in contact with 
other scientific minds; and through a 
vote of his own favorable to the appro¬ 
priation of a sum of money for use by 
Agassiz in the preservation of the re¬ 
markable Brazil collection, his own wide 
and thorough knowledge of the family 
of fishes of nearly every kind became 
known to the men who shortly were 
to seek this knowledge absolutely un¬ 


attainable through any other of our own 
people. 

One morning in the spring of 1868 
the press all over the country spread 
abroad the surprising announcement of 
Mr. Sumner’s submission to the senate of 
Mr. Seward’s treaty (as it was called) 
for our purchase of Alaska; and great 
the wonder grew. Laughable were the 
comments and ridiculous the criticisms 
of those all uninformed, the general 
public feeling being one of doubt as to 
any possible benefit which could accrue 
to us from the possession of so vast an 
adjunct to our landed possessions. Some 
witty ones made merry in rhyme as ex¬ 
travagantly set forth as possible, as may 
be seen in the following verses from a 
Boston paper at that time : — 

“ Know ye the land where the iceberg and myrtle 

With early geen peas and walrus combine? 

Where the Esquimaux sups upon truffles and 
turtle. 

And the white polar bears upon Esquimaux 
dine? 

Where the roses are blooming all the year 
round, 

And the oranges ripen with snow on the 
ground ? 

I Where the polar bear howls in the barley and 
wheat, 

And the settlers are howling for something to 
eat? 

Oh, know ye that land? ’Tis the land of the 
ice; 

’Tis a big Russian land at a rushin’ big price.” 

and also these from San Francisco : — 

“ Lean of flank, and lank of jaw. 

See the real Northern Thor ! 

See the awful Yankee leering 
Just across the Straits of Behring, 

Leaning on his icy hammer 
Stands the hero of this drama; 

And above the wild duck’s clamor 
In his own peculiar grammar, 

With its lingual disguises, 

Lo, the Arctic prologue rises: 

“ Wa’ll, I reckon ’taint so bad, 

Seein’ ez ’twas all they had; 

True, the springs are rather late, 

And early falls predominate; 

But the ice crop’s pretty sure, 

And the air is kind er pure; 

’Taint so very mean a trade. 

When the land is all surveyed, 

There’s a right smart chance for fur chase 
All along this recent purchase; 

And unless the stories fail. 

Every fish from cod to whale; 

Rock, too, mebbe quartz; let’s see — 


, A f r o g Sea ° fficials in 18? 2 .”Actualphoto date Sept. 1868 , San Francisco. Left 

to right: Chades Bryant, Special Agent to Alaska; Hugh H. McIntyre, Agent to Alaska; Hon. 

train Ketchum Collector to Alaska; Samuel Falconer, Deputy Collector to Alaska; Captain 
acmArrH 1 ? 5 °{ Cutter ^ ehan J- were the first US. Treasury agents assigned to the newly 

Bismarck^ North Etokotaf * 1 ^ner Notebook of Hazel Falconer. ' 


34 




The First Three Managers ♦ Bryant 


A CHAPTER OF ALASKA. 


’Twould be strange if there should be — 

Seems I’ve heerd such stones told; 

Eh! — why, bless us — yes, ’tis gold ! ” 

On the public announcement of the in¬ 
tended purchase, Captain Bryant’s inter 
est in the matter was so great that he at 
once consulted several prominent men 
how best to take action, which resulted 
in their telegraphing to Mr. Sumner that 
one of the members of the Massachu¬ 
setts legislature was thoroughly familiar 
with the region of Alaska, and asking if 
his information would be of value. Mr. 
Sumner replied that, although he had 
volumes of Russian records, the practical 
evidence of a living witness would be in¬ 
valuable. Captain Bryant therefore im¬ 
mediately sent to Mr. Sumner such por¬ 
tions of his private journals as bore 
directly upon the case, which testimony 
was made use of in Mr. Sumner’s argu¬ 
ment favoring the purchase, and portions 
of it were printed entire, which proved 
of great value in the consummation of 
the treaty. Mr. Sumner afterward re¬ 
ferred publicly to Captain Bryant’s aid at 
that time, in these kindly words : “ Gen¬ 
tlemen, next to myself you owe it to Cap¬ 
tain Bryant that we were successful in 
purchasing so valuable a territory.” 

The Treasury Department, on assuming 
control of affairs, at once fitted up a 
revenue cutter for active service, whose 
charts were referred to Captain Bryant 
for accurate revision, as here again 
he alone could furnish the information 
needed; and in September, 1868, he 
himself, acting as agent for the Treasury 
Department, set sail for the Seal Islands, 
via Panama, to San Francisco, thence to 
Sitka. But at that point he found himself 
farther from his destination than if he had 
remained in San Francisco. In March, 
1869, however, he reached the islands 
by a chance merchant vessel; and after 
passing the entire sealing season in a 
careful and thorough study of existing 
conditions, be returned to YVashington to 
lay his report before the Treasury Depart¬ 
ment, in which report he recommended 
methods of necessary legislation. 

Owing to delay in affairs at Washington, 
the final consummation of our purchase 
did not take effect until July 27, 1868 ; 
and at that date, acting on authentic 


593 

information regarding the indiscriminate 
slaughter of the seals by various raiding 
parties from many ports, immediately fol¬ 
lowing the transfer of the islands, and 
before our own officials could arrive there, 
Congress, in the absence of any knowledge 
of the habits of the seals and the needs 
of the people, passed a law prohibiting all 
killing. 

Up to the time of Captain Bryant’s 
arrival at the Seal Islands in 1868, noth¬ 
ing had been known of the habits of the 
fur seals, though they first became known 
to commerce through the discovery of 
their nurseries on the rocky islands around 
Terra del Fuego and in the Southern 
Atlantic and Indian Oceans; and in this 
direction, therefore, a close study had to 
be made of their needs and conditions. 
The natural laws controlling their life were 
found to be inexorable, differing in im¬ 
portant degree from those governing all 
other varieties of their species. As their • 
young are not amphibious before fifty or 
sixty days old, it is necessary for their 
successful rearing that they should be 
born on land and remain there until able 
to swim. Special conditions of climate 
are requisite, such as are found on these 
islands alone, situated where the colder 
current from Norton Sound meets the 
warm Japan current that passes through 
the openings between the Aleutian Islands, 
producing a humid condition of atmos¬ 
phere through the summer months, often 
registering ninety-six per cent of obscura¬ 
tion of the sun. The male seals begin 
to land in May, the whole herd following 
in increasing numbers, staying until 
November, when they return to the deep 
waters and remain until the next spring. 
During these months on land, if the 
mothers are killed in their brief absences 
from their young necessary to obtain food 
for themselves, the young seals perish. 
The males while on land partake of no 
food, subsisting entirely on the store of 
fat and oil laid up in their blubber through 
the winter season when they annually 
return to feed in the open waters between 
the islands and the mainland. It is in 
these waters alone that an amount of food 
is found of fish and of marine life neces¬ 
sary to sustain them for the ensuing 
season. Some conception of the vast 


35 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


594 A CHAPTER 

quantity of animal life which exists in 
these waters may be obtained from the 
knowledge that each of the five million 
seals that leave the islands to feed re¬ 
quires at least six pounds of fish per day, 
— thirty million pounds of food daily for 
all. It is on their passage through and 
near these straits that the seals have 
been wantonly slaughtered by raiders who 
hunted them in vessels. 

The full-grown male seal weighs between 
two and three hundred pounds; the full- 
grown female, about eighty pounds. Never 
more than one seal is produced at a birth, 
its weight being about five pounds. 

A short time before Mr. Seward’s 
death, he explained to Captain Bryant 
the details of a plan for making a treaty 
with Russia, by which the two nations 
should have the joint control of those 
northern waters and their fisheries, saying 
that it was a source of deep regret to 
him that his successor in office in the 
State Department had allowed the matter 
to lapse. At the time we bought Alaska 
he had already formed this plan, his 
attention being called to its necessity by 
the fishery troubles then existing and by 
his desire to guard against any future 
contingency that might arise in that direc¬ 
tion. He had therefore carefully com¬ 
piled all possible data and statistics for 
use when the matter should be ripe for 
action, — a matter the importance of 
which grew on his mind with every day 
of his life, and which he had learned to 
consider one of the greatest acts of his 
statesmanship, destined to be regarded 
in our future history with ever-increasing 
appreciation of his wisdom and foresight 
in its successful achievement. 

In March, 1870, Captain Bryant was 
sent to the Pacific coast on a private 
mission for the government; and while 
there, learning from reliable sources of the 
destitute condition of the natives result¬ 
ing from the enforcement of the law 
passed by Congress the previous year, 
prohibiting all killing, — for without com¬ 
merce the people would need to depend 
absolutely upon the seals for food, fuel 
and clothing,— he laid the matter at 
once before the Treasury Department, on 
which he was detached from the private 
mission, and was ordered to proceed at 


OF ALASKA. 

once to the Seal Islands on a revenue vessel 
with supplies for the natives, there to take 
charge until Congress should enact the 
necessary laws for suitable protection. 

In Captain Bryant’s preliminary report 
of 1869, he submitted first and chief of 
all his conviction that the care and pro¬ 
tection of the seals by well-regulated 
methods would tend not only to support 
the natives comfortably, but to pay a con¬ 
siderable revenue to the United States by 
the adoption of a proper system of man¬ 
agement and control. Grafting a plan, 
therefore, on the former somewhat inade¬ 
quate methods of the Russian govern¬ 
ment, he recommended that the islands 
be leased to some single company for 
the right to take a certain number of 
seals under proper restrictions and con¬ 
ditions, with reference to the rights and 
needs of the people and the requirements 
of the Treasury Department. This course 
would be necessary in order that the offi¬ 
cer in charge of the islands might have 
full authority to secure the enforcement of 
the conditions ; for if more than one party 
were allowed to trade with the natives, 
their competition would give rise to irreg¬ 
ularities which could not be traced or 
fixed upon any one, and the result would 
be prejudicial to the welfare of the people. 
Captain Bryant’s plan as submitted to our 
government was adopted with modifica¬ 
tions as needs arose; and as a result of 
his recommendations the islands were 
leased to the Alaska Commercial Com¬ 
pany under certain conditions, in addi¬ 
tion to which the company voluntarily 
agreed to furnish a resident physician on 
each island, with all the medicines neces¬ 
sary for the gratuitous care of the na¬ 
tives ; to furnish also materials and skilled 
labor to aid them in building their cot¬ 
tages ; and at a later date they also im¬ 
ported a library of Russian books for the 
use of those who could read them for the 
benefit of all. 

In October, 1870, the first vessel of the 
Alaska Commercial Company arrived with 
its load of supplies for the natives, bring¬ 
ing its own authority as lessee and also 
official instructions for Captain Bryant to 
execute the plans as already set forth by 
him. At this time there were two hun¬ 
dred and seventy people on St. Paul’s 


36 





The First Three Managers ♦ Bryant 


A CHAPTER 


Island, the headquarters of the settle¬ 
ment, mostly Aleuts from the Aleutian 
Islands, with a proportion of creole blood, 
or a mixture of Russians and natives, 
most of whom had been brought from 
Sitka on the transfer of the territory. 
This creole element was of great service 
from having seen better conditions of 
life, and from having acquired sufficient 
knowledge of the Russian language to be 
able to speak it; this was our only means 
of communication with the natives, the 
Aleutian language being too difficult to 
acquire by speech. The native people 
are undoubtedly of the same origin as the 
Japanese, their ancestors having probably 
drifted in vessels to these shores where 
they found the conditions of life severe 
and strange, and at so remote a period 
as to have lost the use of their native 
language ; but no marked change has oc¬ 
curred in their physique, they having 
been frequently recognized by native 
Japanese as of their own race, though 
speaking an unknown tongue. 

Congress having thus in 1870 author¬ 
ized a fixed condition of the affairs of 
the islands by leasing them to the Alaska 
Commercial Company for twenty years, it 
next became important to administer the 
civil affairs through a regular staff of offi¬ 
cials ; and for information in this direc¬ 
tion Captain Bryant was summoned to 
Washington in 1871 to confer with the 
heads of the Treasury Department as to 
the best methods to be pursued. As a 
result it was determined that the staff 
consist of four officers, — the agent, one 
first assistant and two second assistants. 
As it would be best that on the score of 
health each one should leave the islands 
every second year, it would be necessary 
that two competent officers should be al¬ 
ways in charge with the necessary knowl¬ 
edge for the proper performance of the 
duties required ; and Captain Bryant, as 
duly accredited agent of our Treasury 
Department, in the spring of 1872, was 
permitted to personally select his own as¬ 
sistants, and was himself invested with 
full official authority. 

To realize more clearly the wide scope 
of this undertaking, we will consider the 
geographical situation of our new pur¬ 
chase. Alaska itself is two thousand eight 


OF ALASKA. 595 

hundred miles from east to west, and 
over seven hundred miles north to south, 
or about twelve times the size of New 
York state; but stretching away and 
beyond Alaska in a southwesterly direc¬ 
tion is a long chain of islands, the western 
extremity of which is farther west of San 
Francisco than is the distance from that 
city eastward to the coast of Maine.* And 
two hundred miles north of this chain, 
situated nearly in the middle of Behring 
Sea, lies the Pribylov group known as the 
Fur Sea Islands. They are four in num¬ 
ber, St. Paul, St. George, Otter and 
Walrus, the two latter being only small 
outlying rocks of St. Paul’s Island. These 
islands were to prove by far the most 
valuable part of our purchase, from the 
fact of their being the yearly resort of 
the fur seal in enormous numbers, from 
the wise management of which as a 
source of revenue our government hoped 
to secure valuable returns. They are of 
volcanic formation, seemingly of more 
recent eruption than the Aleutian chain, 
and are distant three hundred miles from 
the nearest point of mainland on the 
north. 

As to the part allotted by our special 
agent to the people themselves in the 
conduct of their affairs, he improved upon 
the former Russian methods, without 
decided change, and appointed one of 
the leading chiefs to act as his executive 
officer, whose duty it was to report to 
him at night all the occurrences of the 
day, as to the number of seals killed and 
all other matters requiring his cognizance. 
This plan was gradually developed and 
modified from time to time as the condi¬ 
tions seemed to direct and as new neces¬ 
sities arose. As Captain Bryant reported 
to the department at Washington only 

* Wolf Island, Maine, and Attow, the western extremity 
of the Aleutian chain, are the extremest distances of the 
United States possessions. They are 7000 miles apart. 

[From San Francisco to Wolf Island, 3300 miles. 

“ “ “ “ Washington, 2700 “ 

“ “ “ “ Attow, . . 3900 “ 

The Pribylov Islands are 200 miles north of the Aleutian 

chain. 

Attow is so far west that it laps over into east longi¬ 
tude. 



37 








Pribilof Islands: The People 


A MEMORY. 


596 

once a year, he had ample time to test 
the value of his experiments and to prove 
them; when found satisfactory, they were 
legalized by the government on his sub¬ 
mission. In this simple manner affairs 
were conducted systematically step by 
step and without any friction. In cases 
of misdemeanor which required judicial 
action, three chiefs were constituted a 
council to examine and to report their 
opinion and decision, subject always to 
the agent’s approval. So just and honest 
were these men that seldom were any 
changes necessary to be made. Their 
veracity in all matters coming up for 
settlement Captain Bryant testifies he 
never had reason to question, and he 
never knew of an attempt at evasion. 
They were men who in any civilized com¬ 
munity would have been natural leaders 
of social law and order. 

To these simple people, from out the 
mists that surrounded their isolated island 
home, had appeared in substantial vision 
the apostle of the era of better things. 
To their sick he had ministered, their 
children he had educated, their civil 
government he had perfected. In all 
material comforts through him they lacked 
nothing, and him they reverenced equally 
with their religious director. Patriarchal 


in its simplicity was his attitude toward 
them in his efforts for their welfare as 
a community; physically, mentally and 
spiritually, through him had their dormant 
faculties been awakened, and they had 
grown to their full stature. Naturally 
their feeling for him had come to be one 
of unbounded love and gratitude. 

Their final parting I will give in Cap¬ 
tain Bryant’s own words : “ The relations 
between the people and myself had be¬ 
come so close and had continued so long 
that the parting was a heartfelt one on 
both sides. They all attended us to the 
beach on our departure and gathered 
around us, loath to have us leave them. 
Many shed tears, and I must confess 1 
was very near it myself. When the final 
adieus were said they all assured us that 
they should go to the church to pray for 
our safe passage and happy arrival home, 
and that they should never pray for them¬ 
selves without remembering and praying 
for us. The last sound of their voices as 
we left the shore was Esc Bogh am (God 
bless you) ; and our last sight of them 
was as they stood upon the cliffs waving 
their handkerchiefs as our ship steamed 
away into the distance. I would rather 
have their benediction than that of the 
highest bishop in the world.” 


—s-’-—£— & • —4?—£—4*-4> 


Deciding then to retire from the sea, Mr. Bryant purchased a farm at East Fairhaven, where 
he resided some twelve years; but fortune had not willed that he should retire to private 
life so soon, and he was called from his farm to undertake a mission to Alaska to report 
on the fur-seal interest in that vicinity. He was given charge of the islands in the Behring 
Sea, receiving his appointment from Hugh McCulloch, then Secretary of the United States 
Treasury, and spent the winter of 1868 at Sitka, returning to his home in September 1869 . 
In March 1870 , he was sent again to the islands in the seal region and given authority to act 
as governor of the natives receiving his appointment from George S. Boutwell, Secretary 
of the Treasury. There he remained until 1877 , when he returned to the old Bay State and 
settled in Mattapoisett, his home up to the present time. 

Captain Bryant was married in 1851 to Miss Hannah Eldridge, daughter of Peleg and 
Hannah (Biggs) Eldridge, of Taunton, Mass. He has no children. 62 He has long been 
interested in public affairs, and has held a number of offices of trust. In 1867 and 
1868 , while a resident of Fairhaven, he occupied a seat in the State legislature; and in 
Mattapoisett, he has served as a member of the Board of Health, and as a member of the 
School Board for four years. He is a man of ability, who efficiently performs all duties 
entrusted to him. 63 


38 








The First Three Managers ♦ Bryant 


The 1889 biography used the colonial term “governor,” which was commonly applied 
in Russian America and the early Territory of Alaska to men in authority. The usage was 
misapplied in Bryants 1899 biography, which labeled him the “First Governor of Alaska.” 

Capt. Charles Bryant, born in Old Rochester [Massachusetts], near Rounseville’s Mill, and 
now residing in Mattapoisett, had the distinction of being the “First Governor of Alaska.” 

Many years ago, while in Boston as a member of the Legislature, he made the acquaintance 
ot [Louis] Agassiz and [Senator] Charles Sumner. After the Alaska purchase, Sumner wrote 
to Agassiz to know where he could find “that Arctic whale captain who knew so much 
about seals. The result was that Captain Bryant was put in charge of the seal fisheries at 
Sitka, retaining that office for a number of years. 64 

The term “governor” was also applied to two other Pribilof Islands agents, but those 
writings limited the agents’ influence to the Seal Islands: “Practically speaking,” says one 
such reference, “the Government agents are the Governors of the islands in connection 
with the management of the Seal Business.” 65 

The obituary of Special Agent William Gavitt called Bryant “former broker and 
Governor of Seal Island, Alaska.” 66 

As is apparent from these writings, the labels “Governor” and “Agent” were used syn¬ 
onymously to describe the government agents during that period. 

In the fourth biography, Mattapoisett historian Charles Mendell applied the title of 
“Governor” to honor local celebrity Charles Bryant. The term remains in use today by 
some residents in the Mattapoisett and Rochester areas of Massachusetts who are quite 
proud of their hometown hero. Mr. Mendell’s unpublished biography reads: 

YEARS AGO 

CAPTAIN CHARLES BRYANT, FIRST GOVERNOR OF ALASKA 

Few people today remember one of Mattapoisett’s most distinguished citizens, Capt. 

Charles R. Bryant, the first governor of Alaska, which is this year celebrating the centennial 
of its purchase from Russia by the United States in 1867 . Capt. Bryant also played a 
prominent part in the decision to buy Alaska, then spent ten years administering the 
territory, and upon his return retired to Mattapoisett where he lived the last 25 years of his 
life in what is now the Mattapoisett Inn on Water Street. 

Capt. Bryant was born on a Rochester [Massachusetts] farm in 1820 , one of a family of 
seven. The farm boy early became acquainted with Mattapoisett by picking fruit in the 
summer months and carrying it to Mattapoisett—on foot most of the time—to Harlow 
and LeBaron’s general store (building now housing Dr. Mysliwy’s office) to be sold to the 
ship carpenters in the shipyards along the waterfront. Before long he was employed by the 
store as general errand boy. In this way he became familiar with all the hustle and bustle of 
a busy seaport and with the constant arrivals and departures of whalers and the constant 
tales of whaling. 

At the age of 20 , he shipped on a New Bedford whaler, the Montezuma. In the next 18 years 
he made six voyages covering the Pacific Ocean, as he used to say, from latitude 60 degrees 
south to latitude 72 degrees north, from the Antarctic to the Arctic. His second voyage, on 
the Ship Champion, took him to the Northwest Pacific Coast, as did his four subsequent 
voyages. It was on these voyages that he acquired that intimate knowledge of the Alaskan 
coast and Aleutian Islands that later made him a logical choice as the government’s first 
administrator of the new territory. 


39 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


On this second voyage on the Champion, 
the ship’s master was killed by the breading 
[breaking] 67 of a tackle-fall and young 
Bryant was evidently promoted to boat 
steerer or harpooner. At any rate, on his 
next voyage he shipped as third mate 
on the ship Abraham Barker, and on 
the following voyage as second mate of 
the Ship Gideon Howard. His two final 
voyages he sailed as captain, first of the 
Gideon Howland and second of the ship 
America. On this voyage Capt. Bryant 
carried a steam whale boat to be tried as 
an experiment, but for some reason it was 
never used. (Perhaps nobody knew how to 
run it.) 

Sometime between voyages Capt. Bryant found time to marry Miss Hannah Eldredge of 
New Bedford. When he returned on the America in May of 1861, he retired from the sea 
and bought a farm and built a house in East Fairhaven where he and his wife went to live. In 
1867 and 1868 he was elected to the state legislature. It is interesting to speculate whether 
Capt. Bryant considered his active life over and was looking forward to many peaceful 
years of retirement on his farm. If so, he was in for a big surprise. 

Down in Washington Secretary of State Seward and the powerful Senator Sumner had 
achieved passage through Congress of a bill to purchase Alaska from Russia for $7,000,000. 
Evidently Capt Bryant, and other whale men, had been called to Washington to give 
testimony before the bill was passed, for later Senator Sumner stated publicly: “next 
to myself you owe it to Capt. Charles Bryant that we were successful in purchasing so 
valuable a territory.” 68 After the Purchase, this vast new territory of Alaska was placed 
under the administration of the Treasury Department, and an administrator had to be 
found. Treasury Secretary McCulloch, acting on the recommendation of Senator Sumner, 
appointed Capt. Bryant as Special Treasury Agent to govern Alaska. 

When Capt. Bryant sailed for Sitka in September, 1868, the task confronting him was 
enormous.... Bryant sailed to the Pribylofs, he found complete anarchy. Taking advantage 
of the absence of any law or orders, raiders had taken over and were slaughtering seals at 
a rate leading to extermination. The arrival of the USS Wyanda (and the military troops) 
put an end to this and allowed Capt. Bryant time to survey the problem, draw up a 
comprehensive plan of action, and return to Washington in 1869, to file his report with the 
Treasury Department. Incidentally, by this time the first transcontinental railroad had been 
completed, so the traveler to and from the Pacific no longer had to spend three or four 
months at sea nor to double Cape Horn. 

In Washington, Capt. Bryant’s report met with complete approval, Alaska was made a 
reservation [only the Pribilof Islands were a reservation, not all the Alaska Territory] 
under the authority of the Secretary of the Treasury, and Secretary Boutwell placed Capt. 
Bryant in charge.... For the latter years of his stay in Alaska, Capt. Bryant’s wife and niece 
journeyed up to live with him. The captain reported that the last winter they were there 
was the coldest for 60 years and the temperature in February averaged four degrees above 
zero. 

After serving nearly eight years under three presidents and seven different secretaries 
of the treasury, Capt. Bryant resigned and with his wife and niece returned to Fairhaven 
on July 30, 1877. Soon thereafter he moved to Mattapoisett, bought the old Meigs tavern 
(present Mattapoisett Inn) and lived there with his wife and niece for the next 25 years. He 
died on July 2, 1903, aged 83. 69 



Mattapoisett Inn, Mattapoisett, Massachusetts. 
Date unknown. (Photo: John A. Lindsay, NOAA.) 


40 






The First Three Managers ♦ Bryant 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

At the insistence of Professor Louis Agassiz and Benjamin Pierce, Superintendent of the 
Office of Coast Survey, Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch appointed Captain 
Charles Bryant the first Special Agent of the U.S. Treasury assigned to the Pribilof Islands. 
Bryant’s appointment came in 1868, and he traveled to Sitka, Alaska, prior to his arrival at 
St. Paul Island during the spring of 1869. Dr. Hugh H. McIntyre also received an appoint¬ 
ment as agent in 1868, and he too arrived in 1869, but McIntyre spent little time on the 
islands (see Hugh McIntyre’s biography). Bryant’s assignment was to protect the interests 
of the Natives on the islands, who were allegedly receiving harsh treatment at the hands 
of freebooting sealers, and the government’s tax revenue interest in the fur seal. Bryant’s 
observations and recommendations to the Secretary of the Treasury received significant 
credit as the basis for legislation leading to the leasing of the Pribilof fur-seal harvest to a 
private company. 70 

While awaiting passage in Sitka to the Pribilofs, Captain Bryant had received a com¬ 
munique (see next page) from Secretary of the Treasury McCulloch directing him to 
expeditiously proceed to the Pribilofs and to gather intelligence on how the Russians had 
conducted business on the islands. 71 

Presumably, the Native Chief (Alexander Milovidov?) on St. Paul Island gave the fol¬ 
lowing statement, dated September 1, 1869. It was cited as a translation and enclosed 
with a June 14, 1870, report by Lieutenant Winslow B. Barnes of the U.S. Revenue Marine 
Service. 72 Whether the document was addressed to Lieutenant Barnes or Captain Bryant 
is unclear, but it was a strong statement of the Pribilof Aleuts’ unhappiness with their new 
situation. 

Written Statement by an Unnamed St. Paul Island Native Chief 

On your arrival at this island you read your instructions in our presence. 

Those instructions were immediately translated to us, and we learned from them that the 
Secretary of the Treasury left to your judgment and intrusted [sic] you to designate the 
number of seals we can kill this year. 

You also handed us a translation of the order of 1868, by which the killing of seals was 
prohibited. 

The fulfillment of this order would have not only brought us to extreme poverty, but would 
have deprived us of means of subsistence. 

We have no money for changing the place of our residence, and the prohibition of seal¬ 
killing will cause our ruin. 

You decided upon a certain number of seals to be taken for our subsistence. Knowing 
that the fixing of the number of seals was left to you, we take the liberty to request you to 
increase the number of seals to be killed this season, and beg to explain hereby the reasons 
which prompt us to do so. 

Twelve cents a day is not sufficient for our food, and besides food we want warm clothing 
for the cold winter, and if we do not provide them our families will suffer from the rigor of 
the climate. Our houses must nearly all be repaired. 

Most of us have debts which we consider it our duty to pay before expending for ourselves. 

We have a church and a school which we support. We have widows and orphans who 
require the support of the community. Finally, we can not subsist on seal meat alone. 


41 






Prjbilof Islands: The People 


The rigor of the winters and the discomfort of our dwellings made us acquire the habit of 
drinking tea, which warms and stimulates us. We are accustomed to this beverage, and it is 
difficult for us to dispense with it. 

We request you to give due attention to our wants, and trust that you will perceive the 
necessity of increasing the number of seals you have decided may be killed in one year. 73 

Captain Bryant and his assistant, Agent Hugh H. McIntyre, may have known of 
the Native Chief’s letter when they reported to Secretary of the Treasury Boutwell on 
November 30, 1869, but they may not have seen it until June 1870 when Lt. Barnes re¬ 
leased his report. Regardless, Bryant’s response to Secretary McCulloch’s earlier instruc¬ 
tions for information on conditions in the Pribilofs Islands did not agree with the Native 
Chief’s expressed concerns. For example: 

Since the transfer both flour and bread have been sent to the islands in large quantities, and 
the stores are well supplied with necessary articles at reasonable prices, so that the people 
feel the change of government to have been to them a benefit, and all express satisfaction 
with their present condition. 74 





(p 


(trcasurri gUprlmenl, 



Letter from 
Secretary of 
Treasury Hugh 
McCulloch to 
Captain Charles 
Bryant. (Pribilof 
Islands Coll., folder 
9, Charles Bryant, 
University of Alaska 
Archives, Fairbanks, 
Alaska.) 




42 




The First Three Managers ♦ Bryant 


v 

-11 st Congress, \ 
2d Session. f 


SENATE. 


Ex. Doc. 
No. 32. 




LETTER 


OK THE 

SECRETARY OE THE TREASURY 

COMMUNICATING, 

In compliance with a resolution of the Senate of December 20, 1800, the 
reports of Captain Charles Bryant, late special ayent of the Treasury 
Department for Alaska, and 11. A. McIntyre, special-agent- of the Treas¬ 
ury Department. 


January 20, 1870. — Referred to tlie Committee ou Territories and ordered to bo printed. 


Treasury Department, January 20, 1870. 
Sni: Tn response to the resolution of the Senate, under date of the 
20th ultimo, I have the honor to transmit herewith a copy of the reports 
of Captain Charles Bryant, late special agent of this department for 
Alaska. 

The report of II. TT. McIntyre, called for by the same resolution, has 
already been transmitted to the Senate. 

.1 am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

GEO. 8. BOUTWELL, 
Secretary of the Treasury. 

ITon. Schuyler Colfax, 

President U. S. Senate, Washington, 1). C. 


REPORTS OF CAPTAIN CHARLES BRYANT. 

Eatriiaven, Mass., November 30,1800. 

Sir: Having returned from Alaska, where I was ordered as special 
agent of the Treasury Department in September, 1808, to examine into 
the resources of the Territory, and the character and habits of its vari¬ 
ous tribes, I have the honor to submit the following report: 

On account of the great diversity in the physical features of the Ter¬ 
ritory, the widely varying nature of the products of the different sec¬ 
tions, and the very marked difference in the character and habits of the 
various tribes, I have deemed it necessary to describe each portion of 
the country in detail, in order that a proper idea of the whole Territory 
may be gained; and as my attention was more particularly called to the 
interests of the fur-seal trade in Behring’s Sea, I will begin with the 
islands of St. Caul and St. George. 


43 














Pribilof Islands: The People 


9 


U 


ALASKA. 


TIIE PltTBTLOV, Oil SEAL ISLANDS. 

The Pribilov group was discovered in the year 1785, by Captain Prib- 
ilov, who came from Russia to take charge of the trading post at Un- 
alaska. Observing large numbers of seals passing north through the 
Aleutian Islands in the spring, and returning in the fall, he conceived 
the idea that some unknown land to the northward was visited by them, 
and accordingly fitted out an expedition which resulted in the discovery, 
in June, 1785, of the island, named for the vessel in which he sailed, 
St. George. Jn the following year, in a clear day, the people left on St. 
George saw another island to the northward, which, from the day of its 
discovery, was named St. Paul. 

St. Paul Island is triangular in form, sixteen miles long, and about 
four and one-half miles wide. It is of volcanic origin, and consists of 
a cluster of cones formed by the cracking of the earth’s crust and the 
pouring out of the melted matter of the interior. These cones through 
the center of the island have an elevation of from from two to four 
thousand feet, and a diameter at the base of from half a mile to a mile 
and a half, while those along the shore are much smaller, having a diam¬ 
eter of one-eighth to one-half a mile at the base. These cones seem to 
be wholly composed of clink-stones, which are cracked in many places, 
either from contraction in cooling or by the action of frost. Where the 
cones project into the water they form rounded points, Hanked by a belt 
of loose rocks between them, and the water varying from five to forty 
rods in width. Between these points the shores arc composed of loose 
sand. The narrow peninsula projecting two and one-half miles from 
the island in a southwesterly direction, and forming the harbor known 
as Southwest Bay, was formerly an island, which has gradually connected 
itself with the larger island, to which it is attached by the formation of 
ail immense bank of fine sand, which has been thrown up by the action 
of the water. At the present time, the small cove near the village, and 
by way of which goods are lightered to the store-houses, is slowly filling 
up, so that a sand bank now appears where one year ago a vessel draw¬ 
ing six feet of water was lying at anchor. 

Near the center of the island one of the cones shows the rim of the 
crater of an extinct volcano some thirty rods in diameter. Around its 
base are several deep fissures, communicating with dark caves. This 
portion of the island is composed wholly of clink stones and lava, cov¬ 
ered with a growth of moss. 

St. George Island is situated about forty miles southeast from St. 
Paul. It is about twelve miles long by four miles wide, and very irreg¬ 
ular in shape. Its general features are the same as those of St. Paul, 
except that the shores are bolder and the mountains crossing it are less 
conical. The island bears the appearance of having been much larger 
at one time, t he surrounding portions appearing to have been again sub¬ 
merged after the upheaval, leaving the shores bold and prominent. It 
is only on the sloping shores of the depressions through the center that 
the seals are able to obtain a footing, as at all other points the surf 
breaks against the base of the cliffs. 

Two small islands, known as Walrus and Otter Islands, and situated 
near St. Paul, complete the Pribilov group. 

Previous to my arrival, no meteorological records had been kept on 
i he islands. My own observations give the mean temperature of the 
months of June, July, and August, respectively, at 48°, 51°, and 50° 
above zero, and I was informed that during the last winter the mercury 
Avas tAvice congealed. Snow falls from October to April; but except at 


44 




The First Three Managers ♦ Bryant 


ALASKA. 3 

those points which are protected from the wind, does not attain any 
great depth. During the months of March and April, vast masses of 
ice, which have formed during the winter in Behring’s Sea, pass to the 
southward. The weather at this season is very severe, the storms being 
long and violent. But little fog was experienced on the island of St. 
Paul during last summer, though it could be seen a few miles distant 
the greater part of the time, and the sun was generally partially obscured 
by the humid atmosphere. The climate docs not admit of agricultural 
pursuits, but there are at least one thousand acres of first class grazing 
land along the southeast shore of St. Paul. Last year a horse and four 
cattle were placed on the island by the parties doing business there. 
Directions had been given to have a quantity of hay prepared, but as 
the wet weather prevented this from being done, the animals were forced 
to subsist on the dry grass of the marshes. Contrary to the general ex¬ 
pectation, the spring found them in good condition, the abundant supply 
of wild rye heads having proved a most nutritious food. Sheep and 
goats have been added to the stock, during the present season, and all 
are doing well. I have been thus minute in description, as it has been 
asserted that the islands arc barren rocks, destitute of vegetation. 

THE PUR SEAL. 

The seals resort to the Pribilov Islands during the summer months, 
apparently for the sole purpose of reproducing their species. To this 
end each age or class contributes its share of labor or care, remaining 
on shore or in the water as may be necessary. In order to fully under¬ 
stand the duties of the various classes, a description of the animal seems 
to be necessary at this point. 

The male seal attains its full growth at the age of six years, when it 
measures from seven to eight feet in length, and from six to seven in 
circumference. Its color is a dark brown with a gray over-hair on the 
neck and shoulders, and its weight is from six to twelve hundred pounds. 
These alone occupy the rookeries with the females. 

A full-grown female measures from four to five feet in length and 
three feet in circumference, and weighs from one to three hundred 
pounds. It differs in shape somewhat from the male, in having a shorter 
neck and greater fullness of body in the posterior parts. Its color when 
it first leaves the water is a dark “ steel-mixed” on the back, and lighter 
about the breast and sides. After being on shore a few days, its color 
gradually changes to a dark brown on the back and assumes an orange 
hue on the breast and throat, and is, therefore, easily distinguished from 
i 'the male. The female attains its full size and brings forth young about 
the third or fourth year. The yearling seals weigh from forty to sixty 
pounds, and are of a dark brown color, with a lighter shade about the 
throat. The intermediate ages from one to six are readily distinguished 
by their difference in size and form. The reproductive organs of the 
male are developed in the fourth year of its age, but it has not yet ac¬ 
quired sufficient strength to maintain its place in the breeding rookeries, 
which are occupied exclusively by the old males and females with their 
pups. These rookeries are located on the belt of loose rock, between 
the liigh-water mark and the base of the cliffs, and vary in width from 
five to forty rods. The stretches of sand beach between the rookeries 
are occupied by the young seals as temporary resting places, or by the 
sick and wounded as neutral ground, on which they may remain undis¬ 
turbed. The old males return each year to the same rock as long as 
they are able to maintain their position. It is vouched for by the na- 


45 








Pribilof Islands: The People 


4 ALASKA. 

fives tliat one seal came for seventeen successive seasons to the same 
point. The male seals under six years of age are not allowed on tlie 
breeding rookeries, and they are generally found in the water swimming 
along the shore during the day, and at night on the uplands above the 
rookeries, where they rest scattered about like a flock of sheep. Where 
a long continuous shore line is occupied by the rookeries, narrow pas¬ 
sages are left at convenient intervals, through which the young seals 
may pass unmolested to and from the uplands. At times a line of seals 
may be seen for hours passing in single tile through these open spaces. 
JT at any time, from sudden fright, they attempt to cross the rookeries at 
any other point, a general engagement ensues, resulting in the killing 
anil wounding of large numbers, and if the females with their pups are 
on the rookeries, many of the latter are crushed by being trampled upon. 
Constant care is necessary, therefore, on the part ol the officer in charge, 
or of the native chiefs, to prevent any unusual demonstration to alarm 
the rookeries. 

The special duty of the old males, or wigs, as they are commonly 
called, is to receive the females on their arrival, and to watch over and 
protect their young until large enough to be left to the care of their 
mothers and the younger males, or bachelors, as the latter are termed. 

From the first to the middle of April, when the snow has melted from 
the shore and the drift-ice from the north ceased running, a few old male 
seals make their appearance in the water around the islands, and after 
two or three days’ reconnoissance, venture on shore and examine the rook¬ 
eries, carefully smelling them. If everything is satisfactory thus far, 
after a day or two, a few climb the slopes and lie with heads erect list¬ 
ening. At this time, if the wind blows in the direction of the rookeries, 
all fires are extinguished and all unnecessary noises suppressed. These 
scouts soon depart, and after a few days return with large numbers of 
the male seals of all ages. The rookeries are taken possession of by the 
old males, who drive the younger ones into the water, or to the uplands 
inside the rookeries. In locating for the season, the old males each re¬ 
serve about one square rod of ground for the convenience of their future 
families, and that they may have sufficient room in which to execute 
their awkward movements in defending themselves against the attacks 
of their neighbors. Male seals continue to arrive daily for some time, 
the greater part of whom are old wigs, who fight their way to their old 
places, or prepare to defend some newly selected ground against any 
former occupant that may claim it. They acknowledge no right save 
might, so that the quarrel is incessant day and night, and the continual 
growling sounds like the approach of a distant railroad train. 

About the middle of June, the males have all arrived and the ground 
is fully occupied by them. Soon after this the females begin to come, in 
small numbers at first, increasing as the season grows later, until the 
middle of July, when the rookeries are full and many of the reservations 
of the old males overcrowded with their respective families. When the 
females first arrive many of them appear desirous of returning to some 
particular male, and frequently climb the rocks overlooking the rookeries 
and utter a peculiar cry as if endeavoring to attract the attention of some 
acquaintance. Changing their place at intervals, this cry is often repeated 
until some bachelor perceives her and she is driven to the rookeries 
and quickly appropriated. It seems to be t he sole duty of the bachelors 
at this season to compel the females to take their places in the rookeries, 
and often against their will. When the female reaches the shore, the 
nearest male meets and coaxes her with a peculiar clucking noise until 
he gets between her and the water, when his tone changes, and, with a 


46 






The First Three Managers 


ALASKA. 


5 


growl he drives her to a place in his family. This continues until the 
lower row begins to get full, whim those higher up from the shore, watch¬ 
ing their opportunity when their neighbor is off' his guard, rob his fam¬ 
ily to augment their own. This they do by taking the female in their 
mouths and carrying her to their own ground. Those still higher up 
pursue the same plan until all the space is occupied. Frequently a strug¬ 
gle ensues between two males for the same female, both seizing her at 
once, and either pulling her asunder or terribly lacerating her. After 
the ground lias been covered the old male devotes his time to keeping 
order in his family and driving away intruders. Within two or three 
days after their arrival the females give birth to one pup, each, which is 
of a very dark brown color, and weighs from six to twelve pounds. The 
mother manifests a strong attachment for her young and distinguishes 
its cry, which resembles the bleating of a lamb, among thousands. Soon 
after the birth of the pup the female receives the male on the rocks, but 
it is doubtful whether this connection is often perfect. She is subsequently 
allowed to go into the water, where she is followed by the|voung males, 
by whom the connection is repeated. Upon her return to the rookeries 
she is from this time allowed greater freedom, and goes at will from one 
point to another. By the middle of August the females have all brought 
forth their young, and the old males, who have constantly occupied their 
places for four months without food, resign their charge to the bachelors 
and go into the water for the apparent purpose of feeding. The asser¬ 
tion that the seals live so long without food seems so contrary to nature, 
that I will state that 1 took special pains to examine daily a large extent 
of rookery and note it carefully. The rocks on the rookeries are worn 
smooth and washed by the surf, and any discharge of excrement could 
not fail to be seen. 1 found in a few instances a single discharge of excre- 
mentitious matter on the arrival of the seals, but nothing subsequently 
to indicate that any food is taken ; nor do they leave the rocks at any 
time except when compelled by the heat to seek the water to cool them¬ 
selves. 


On their arrival in the spring they are very fat and round, but at the 
end of four months are thin and of little more than half their former 
weight. 1 also examined the stomachs of several hundred young seals, 
but was unable to find any traces of food in them. 

The udder of the female is situated about half-way between the fore 
and hind flippers, and is furnished with four teats. The milk is of a 
yellowish white color, insipid to the taste, and is said to contain no sugar. 
The pups nurse but seldom, and when separated from the mother for 
thirty-six hours seem in no haste to seek nourishment on her return. 

About the middle of July the great body of the last year’s pups arrive 
and occupy the slopes with the younger class of males, while the young- 
females join the older ones on the breeding rookeries. The females go 
into the water to feed when the pups are some six weeks old, leaving 
them on the uplands; nor do the young seek the water until they are 
several months old, and even then seldom from choice, but are forced 
to learn to swim by the old males. About the last of October the seals 
begin to leave the island, the young and females going first, and the old 
males following them. By the first of December all have departed. In 
November the young seals stop to rest for a few days on the Aleutian 
Islands, where several hundred are annually killed by the natives. 


MANNER OF KILLING. 


While the young seals are resting on the slopes above the rookeries, 


Bryant 


47 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


6 ALASKA. 

as I have already described, a party of hunters, armed with clubs of 
hard wood, approach them and creep quietly between the rookeries and 
the shore, and at a given signal start forward at once and drive the 
animals inland in a body. When at a sufficient distance from the water, 
a halt is made, and as many of the undesirable seals selected out ami 
sent back as possible. Only those of the ages of two and three years 
are considered prime skins. The remainder of the flock is then driven 
to the slaughter ground, which is sometimes several miles distant. It 
is necessary to drive them inland some distance in order that the smell 
of blood may not alarm the rookeries, and it is also a matter of conven¬ 
ience to have the seal carry his own skin to a point near the salt houses; 
but the driving must be conducted with the greatest care, as, when the 
animal is overheated, the fur loosens and the skin is rendered worthless. 
On arriving at the killing ground, a few boys are stationed to prevent 
them from straggling, and they are left to rest and cool, after which a 
small number are separated from the flock, surrounded, and driven 
closely together, where they are confined by treading on each other’s 
flippers. In this position the desirable animals are quickly killed by a 
light blow on the nose from the hunter’s club, and all others are allowed 
to enter the water at the nearest point, whence they return to the spot 
from which they were driven ; this is repeated until the whole flock has 
been disposed of. In the skinning, every man is expected to contribute 
his share of labor, as all receive a portion of the proceeds of the sale of 
the skins. As the seals are not considered as being wholly at rest for 
the season until the females arrive, great care is required in selecting 
the proper place from which to drive, early in the season, and this is 
exercised by the chief, or one of his subordinate officers, who has the 
whole direction of this part of the business. 

In the month of May, only such small numbers as arc required for eat¬ 
ing are driven; in June they become more numerous, and are then 
driven for their skins, although the percentage of prime skins in any 
flock is very small. About the middle of July the females go from the 
rookeries into the water, and there is a season of general unrest among 
all classes of seals, during which, for a period of about ten or fifteen days, 
none are killed. 

About this time the yearling seals arrive, and these, together with a 
portion of the females, mix with the young males, greatly increasing the 
difficulty in distinguishing the proper animal for killing, and it is neces¬ 
sary for the chief, or his deputy in charge, to designate each seal 
to be slaughtered; only the strong interest which the natives feel 
in their preservation can insure the proper care in the selection. Sep¬ 
tember and October are considered the best months for capturing the 
seal. In addition to the skin, each seal yields about one and one-lialf 
gallons of oil, and the lining membrane of the throat, and portions of 
the intestines, which latter are indispensable to the Aleutians at all 
points, being used in the manufacture of water-proof clothing, without 
which they could not venture at sea in their skin boats. 

It will be seen from the foregoing description of the habits of the seal, 
that their preservation and increase are very simple matters, the only 
requirements being that the animals shall not be unnecessarily disturbed 
at any time, and that, for killing, the males only shall be selected; and 
L will add that the increase is more rapid, when a portion of the males 
are killed each year, since, by the constant fighting of this sex, when in 
excess, many of the young are trampled upon and destroyed. 


48 





The First Three Managers ♦ Bryant 


ALASKA. 7 

MANNER, OF CURING THE SKINS. 

The skins, on being taken to the salt houses, are packed in square- 
bins or benches, with the flesh side up, on which a quantity of salt is 
scattered. Here they are allowed to remain one or two months, when 
they are removed and folded with a quantity of clean salt, and firmly 
rolled and tied for shipment, only requiring a small additional quantity 
of salt on being removed from the islands. 

NUMBER OF SEALS. 

There are, on St,. Paid Island, at least twelve miles of shore line, 
occupied by the breeding rookeries, not less than fifteen rods wide, with 
an average of twenty seals to the square rod. This gives the whole 
number of breeding males and females at 1,152,000 ; deducting from this 
number, one-tenth, for males, and we have remaining 1,030,800 breeding 
females, which number may, with care in killing, be largely increased 
from year to year, until the islands shall ultimately be fully occupied by 
them. 

The number of breeding animals on St. George is estimated at nearly 
one-lialf as many as occupy St. Paul. In addition to those on breeding 
rookeries, we have the large number of young seals, scattered about at 
various points, and swelling the total number of animals on the two 
islands to not less than three or four millions. 

I will remark here, that the peculiar, humid atmosphere, and unvary¬ 
ing summer temperature, induced by the meeting of the warm ocean 
currents from the south and the colder ones from the north, seem to 
render these islands the favorite resort of the seals in preference to those 
of the Aleutian group. 

It is the opinion of the native chiefs, and of the late officers of the 
Russian-American Company who have been stationed on the seal islands, 
that 100,000 skins may at the present time be taken from both islands 
without diminishing the annual production. 

FRICE PAID AND RECEIVED FOR SKINS. 

The late Russian company allowed the natives ten cents each for seal 
■ skins, delivered by the side of the vessel for shipment, which, of course, 
included the labor of salting, packing, <&c. 

The American traders who engaged in the business in 1868, paid 
about thirty cents each for the skins delivered at the salt houses, and 
from fifty cents to one dollar per day for all labor performed in preparing 
them for market. During the last season the sum of forty cents each has 
been paid for the small number, amounting to about sixteen thousand, 
on St. Paul, at the date of my departure from the island the last of Au¬ 
gust, killed for the sustenance of the natives. 

London is the principal market for raw seal skins, where the average 
price, previous to 1806, was about three dollars per skin, but, as they 
became fashionable for ladies’ wear, in 1807 the price rose to seven dol¬ 
lars per skin. The large number taken in 1807 and 1808, amounting to 
about three hundred thousand, have again decreased the London valua¬ 
tion to three and four dollars each. 

BUILDINGS ON TIIE ISLANDS. 

The late Russian company’s buildings are situated on the peninsula 




49 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


g ALASKA. 

of St. Paul Island, and comprise three dwelling houses, one storehouse 
for goods, and one large warehouse for salting and storing skins. They 
a,re all built of wood, and were much out of repair when the transfer 
took place. The parties occupying them at the present time have since 
repaired them at an expense nearly equal to their original cost. Parties 
doing business on the islands last summer, erected several new build¬ 
ings on both islands. 

The village of the natives, grouped about the company’s buildings, 
comprises some forty lints on St. Paul, and about half as many on St. 
George. They are built of turf and thatched with grass. Each house 
has two or three apartments, in the inner one of which the family, often 
comprising ten or fifteen persons, live in a space seldom exceeding the 
dimensions of fifteen feet long by twelve feet wide, and six feet high. 
Some of the houses are neatly kept, but being built partly under ground, 
all lack light and ventilation. There being no wood on the islands, seal 
blubber is used as fuel, the smoke of which is very disagreeable. Con¬ 
siderable lumber has been distributed amongthe natives during the past 
summer, but a large additional quantity is needed to enable them to 
make their houses comfortable. 

INHABITANTS. 

The population of St. Paul comprises 248, and St. George 127 na¬ 
tives of the Aleutian family. This includes a few men brought from 
Kadiak Island last summer, and who express their intention to 
return to their native place. All are members of the Greco-Russian 
church, and are presided over by a subordinate of the priest at Uua- 
laska. They carefully observe all rites and ceremonies of the church, 
which goes far in relieving the monotony of their lives. The leading 
men are sufiieiently educated in the Russian language to be able to read 
and write, and keep their accounts of labor correctly. The marriage 
obligation is strictly observed, and the women arc modest and reserved 
in their deportment. Under the Russian company, the islands were 
governed by agents residing here, who exercised absolute authority in the 
administration of the affairs of the company. The natives were held as 
serfs, and allowed no claim of ownership to property, or to any interest 
outside the company. A chief or foreman was designated by the agent, 
and to his direction all were expected to submit. The work of taking 
the seals is performed exclusively by the men, but the women have con¬ 
siderable out-of-door work in the way of carrying the skins to the store¬ 
houses, and bringing fresh water from a distance for the use of their 
families. The firm of Messrs. Hutchinson, Kohl & Co., composed, in 
part, of the officers of the late Russian company, who came to the island 
in the spring following the transfer, retained in their service the former 
agents, foremen, and natives, and continued, as far as practicable, the 
old system, and so continue to do up to the present time, as this seems 
to give 1 he greatest satisfaction to the natives, who are averse to changes. 

In the summer of 18G8, the natives, observing that too large a number 
of seals were being killed, and being fearful that migration would result, 
applied to their former officers for assistance, who informed them that 
their power had ceased, and that they were subjects of a government 
where the people regulated their own affairs. This suggestion they 
acted upon, and proceeded to elect a chief and council of two, as the 
former objected to taking the responsibility of government unaided. 
These officers control their communities in all ordinary matters, but the 
voice of the people is heard on all important questions. Following this 


50 



The First Three Managers ♦ Bryant 


ALASKA. 


9 


election, the men organized in classes, according to their respective worth 
and ability. On St. Paul Island, the first class comprised twenty-one 
men, who were acknowledged to be the best workmen, and of the best 
moral standing; the second class, of sixteen, comprising those less willing 
to work, and the third class of six men, made up of the idle and vicious. 
All are obliged to work in taking seals, and the proceeds of their labor 
constitutes a public fund, out of which the priest is paid $130 per annum, 
and the chiefs $40 each for extra services, and the remainder is divided 
pro rata among the different classes, after appropriating for those who 
arc unable to work. This system has worked harmoniously thus far, and 
the only criminal offense recorded is that of drunkenness and abuse of 
family, for which the offender was confined in the salt-house for two 
days ; since which he has given no trouble. Theft and all petty crimes 
are unknown. I have been thus minute in detail, in order that it may 
he understood that the natives of the islands, under a proper officer, are 
able to defend the interests of the government with little expense. 


FOOT) OF THE INHABITANTS. 


The principal food of the islands is seal meat, from the recently killed 
animals, in summer, and in winter, from I he frozen carcasses of those killed 
very late in the season, and preserved for future use. After removing 
the skin of the seal, the blubber, from one to four inches thick, and 
completely enveloping the carcass, is taken off, and the muscle remains 
without any undue intermixture of fatty matters. 

The flesh of the yearling seal is somewhat darker than beef when raw, 
and nearly black when cooked. It is juicy and tender, but lacks 
the firmness and sweet flavor of beef; in highly seasoned dishes it is 
relished by all; the soldiers preferred it to salt, rations at all times. A 
five weeks’ old pup, roasted, is esteemed a. great luxury. The meat of the 
sea-lion, which is taken in small numbers, is considered superior to that 
of the seal. Halibut may be caught in large numbers a few miles from 
the islands, and small waterfowls and snipe are obtainable in their sea¬ 
son. Breadstuff's were formerly supplied in limited quantities by the 
Russians, chiefly in the form of rye, unground, and which the natives 
were obliged to prepare as best they might with the limited facilities at 
hand. Since the transfer both flour and bread have been sent to the 
islands in large quantities, and the stores arc well supplied with all 
necessary articles at reasonable prices, so that the people feel the change 
of government to have been to them a benefit, and all express satisfac¬ 
tion with their present condition. 

It will be seen from the foregoing remarks concerning the preserva¬ 
tion of the seal, and of the requirements of the natives, that one is de¬ 
pendent on the other; that is, the seals can be preserved only by placing 
it in the interests of the natives to guard them as the source whence 
their support is to be derived, while it is evident on the other hand that, 
if deprived of the benefits of the seal fisheries, they would have no means 
of subsistence. I believe that nothing less than the interests of some 
parties in the seal trade will serve to protect the simple-minded natives 
in their rights without incurring great expense to the government, and 
I am of opinion, therefore, that the best method of securing the desired 
object is to give to one responsible company the right of purchasing on 
the islands, at proper prices, according to their market value, a stated 
number of skins—say, for the present, 100,000 annually—in return for 
which privilege said company shall give security for the payment of a 
proper tax to the government, and to provide for the natives by the sale 
of goods at reasonable fixed prices, or by the gratuitous distribution of 


51 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


10 ALASKA. 

supplies when ncecssary, and also to care for the sick, and maintain 
schools on the islands for the education of the children. 

THE SEA-LION. 

Along- with the fur-seal the sea-lion is found in considerable numbers 
on the Pribilov Islands. It is the largest of the seal family, and fre¬ 
quently measures thirteen feet in length, and weighs from fifteen hun¬ 
dred to two thousand pounds. Its habits arc similar to those of the fur- 
seal. It is covered with a thick growth of light brown hair, without fur, but 
the skin is of considerable value as an article of commerce in the western 
part of the Territory, being used by the natives to cover their boats. All 
the Aleutian Islands, and a large extent of the mainland coast, are de¬ 
pendent on the Pribilov group for their supply of skins for this purpose. 

The principal sea-lion rookery is on the north end of St. Paul Island, 
whence the animals must be driven ten or twelve miles to bring their 
skins to the drying-frames, where they are prepared for market. The 
animal is much more powerful and savage than the fur-seal, and the 
hunters are frequently seriously injured in capturing it. In killing the 
larger animals it is necessary to use the rifle, as it would be dangerous 
to approach them with the ordinary seal-club. Their flesh is preferred 
to that of the seal as an article of food, and nearly every part of the an¬ 
imal is made use of in the manufacture of the various articles necessary 
to sea-otter hunting. Prom one to two thousand sea-lions are taken an¬ 
nually. 


In 1870, the Treasury Department appointed Captain Bryant as agent to oversee the 
beginning of the fur-seal fishery operation, which effectively began in 1871 under a twen¬ 
ty-year lease granted by the United States to the Alaska Commercial Company. 

Bryant’s annual report, dated July 14, 1870, stated in part: 

Sir: In compliance with the instructions of the Department of May 24, 1870, ordering 
me to take charge of the sealing islands and to provide for the immediate wants of the 
inhabitants, if found in a condition of necessity, I called on the chiefs at each island to give 
me a statement of the actual wants of the population. 

From the information so obtained and from the absence of provisions in the stores of 
Hutchinson, Kohl & Co. and William & Havens, it became apparent that measures should 
be taken for supplying from such stores as were put on board the revenue steamer Lincoln 
in prevision of that emergency. I therefore requested the commander of the Lincoln to land 
on the islands all the bread and flour which might be possibly spared from his vessel as well 
as the items specially ordered.... 

I am happy to report that thus far the conditions have been fully complied with. The store 
has been well stocked with goods of good quality and sold at low prices. 75 

According to Bryant’s May 19, 1871 report, island conditions had improved remark¬ 
ably. 76 

It appears that no other agent’s Pribilof experiences have been written about more 
than those of Bryant’s, excepting Henry Wood Elliott’s. Elliott served under Captain 
Bryant during 1872-1873, and he is often credited with saving the northern fur seal from 
extinction. Elliott often criticized Bryant’s management style and his seemingly poor un- 


52 





The First Three Managers ♦ Bryant 


derstanding of the seals’ natural history (see Henry Elliott biography). In 1873, William 
Dali countered Elliot’s criticisms about Bryant. Excerpts of Dali’s letter follow: 

Nov. 14,1873 

My dear Prof. [Spencer Baird] 

I have hurried writing to you on account of a matter which has just come to my knowledge 
and which if it be not checked may lead to incalculable mischief and injury to the 
Government. I hear Henry Elliott has preferred charges against Capt. Bryant with a view to 
having him ousted. I do not know the specific nature of the charges. But I do know and will 
vouch for the following facts. 

Bryant is a perfectly honest man. This I will stake my existence upon. If it had been 
otherwise, I have frequently heard members of the Alaska Commercial Company say, “The 
damned old fool might have been rich long ago.” 

Nevertheless he may have, and I think, has been guilty of some indiscretions the main 
ones being that he has allowed the prince of scoundrels Dr. McIntyre to persuade him into 
appointing unworthy men as deputies, notably Falconer, (who is a great friend of Elliott’s) 
and who was a defaulter in his accounts when in the Government service at Sitka, and I 
have been told escaped there by bribing the inspector. Falconer is and has been in the pay 
of the Alaska Commercial Company. 

I understand that Bryant was also persuaded to allow the killing of about 1000 seals more 
than the law allows but this rests upon the authority of members of that company and the 
reason given was that a certain number of skins had been spoiled out of the legal number. 
Nevertheless, whatever mistake in judgment may have been made by him I am persuaded 
that no very serious injury to the interests of the Government can happen while Bryant is 
there. 

Elliott has been made a complete fool of by playing upon his vanity, and is doubtless 
perfectly honest in his statements. 

I understood that a strong effort will be made this winter to replace Bryant by Falconer 
whose character has already been alluded to or by the son of Senator Morton. The latter 
young man is doubtless an honest young donkey, but has been for several years receiving 
$5,000 per annum for doing nothing, from the Alaska Com’l. Co. it is intimated here on 
account of services rendered by his father in getting the original bill passed by which the 
Company got the lease. It is absurdity to suppose he would be anything but a pliant tool in 
their hands. 

You may use this letter in any way which in your judgment will promote the interests of the 
Government. 

Yours very truly, 

Wm H. Dali 

Acting Asst. U.S. Coast Survey 
In charge Alaska Coast 

Twenty years later, Henry Elliott would be criticized by scientists and politicians in 
ways similar to his criticisms of Charles Bryant (see Elliott biography). 

**** 


In 1890, after his retirement, Captain Bryant published an article in The Century 
Illustrated Monthly Magazine about his experiences and interpretations of life on the 
Pribilof Islands. 

¥ fi[ 


53 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


ON THE FUR SEAL ISLANDS. 


BY THE FIRST SPECIAL TREASURY AGENT. 


ORTLY after the cession 
of Russian America to the 
United States, the latter 
government began to take 
active measures for the 
protection of the few 
fisheries of the islands of 
the ceded territory, and 
thus it happened that I, as one who had had 
eighteen years’ experience as a whaler in the 
North Pacific, became a factor in the plans 
for protection. My knowledge of the natural 
history, conditions of life, and currents of the 
North Pacific had brought me into communi¬ 
cation with Professor Louis Agassiz and with 
Professor Benjamin Peirce, who was at the time 
Superintendent of the Coast Survey, and at 
their instance I was appointed by Hon. Hugh 
McCulloch, Secretary of the Treasury, first 
to report on the fur-seal fisheries and then to 
organize a system by which the interest of the 
islanders could be guarded and the seals pro¬ 
tected against unnecessary destruction. The 
system established by me is still in active force. 
I reached the Fur Seal, or Pribyloff, Islands 
early in March, 1869 , but it was not until the 
spring of 1871 that order was finally brought 
out of the confusion into which the fisheries had 
been thrown by the change in ownership, and 
we began operations under the lease granted to 
the Alaska Commercial Company. I had found 
the natives disorganized and terrified concern¬ 
ing their future, as the irregularities practiced 
by the various parties who had raided the isl¬ 
ands for seals in the previous year had threat¬ 
ened extermination both to islanders and to 
seals; and the plan of fishing finally adopted 
was grafted on the general method which the 
Russians had observed, and in which the na¬ 
tives, who knew it, would therefore be likely 
to*have confidence. 

The Russians had maintained a head agent 
on the islands, with whom had been associated 
two creole subordinates who had been suffi¬ 
ciently educated in the counting-houses of Sitka 
to keep the accounts with the natives and to 
direct them in killing the seals and preparing 
the skins. A certain sum was allowed the isl¬ 
anders for compensation. The head agent 
employed three or four of the most capable 
men to direct parties at work, and the driving 
and killing of the seals had been left mainly to 
these. Their method had been to drive the 


seals as near as possible to the salting-houses, 
in order that the labor of carrying the skins 
might be made as light as possible; and they 
had become sufficiently expert in their work 
to understand that by killing the smaller seals 
the work would be lighter, though no discrimi¬ 
nation was made as to the quality of the skins 
in the animals killed. The number of skins 
taken annually had varied from forty thousand 
to sixty thousand. 

That the Government agent in charge of the 
islands might have full power to enforce and 
supervise all operations, it seemed best to leave 
to some responsible company the right to take 
a stated number of seals under restrictions and 
regulations that would best subserve the in¬ 
terests of the United States and of the natives 
themselves, who were to have the exclusive 
right to kill the seals and salt the skins. 

When the sealing began in the spring of 1871 , 
itsoon became evident that the clumsy methods 
in vogue were open to very great improvement. 
To take the necessary number of seals to fill 
out the annual catch, the whole working force 
of the islands was kept busy from the 1 st of 
June until September, the women'helping, par¬ 
ticularly in carrying the skins to the salting- 
houses. These had been built too far from the 
landing, and as soon as possible they were 
moved nearer to the beach, in order to facili¬ 
tate the transfer of the skins to the boats on 
shipping. As the skins prepared for shipment, 
and all the salt necessary for curing them, had 
to be carried on the backs of the natives across 
a broad beach of soft sand and through the 
shallow water to and from boats, a railway of 
light iron rails was eventually built, to be laid 
in movable sections, with high-wheeled flat¬ 
cars. Mules, carts, and harnesses were brought 
to the islands, and whenever the skins were 
to be carried to the salting-houses from the 
slaughter-grounds the boys and girls, for the 
sake of the ride back in the empty carts, were 
ready to load them. This relieved the women 
of the necessity of all outdoor work in sealing 
time, except occasional journeys for the nec¬ 
essary supply of seal flesh for food. Later, 
when we had taught them to make bread 
and had introduced various articles of food, seal 
flesh and blubber, which had been formerly al¬ 
most the sole means of sustenance, were used 
much less frequently. Under the lease held by 
the Alaska Commercial Company the number 



902 


54 







The First Three Managers ♦ Bryant 


ON THE FUR SEAL ISLANDS. 


of seals to be killed annually was limited to 
100,000; and at 40 cents a skin, the sum allowed 
the natives for each skin brought in, $40,000 
was annually divided among the islanders em¬ 
ployed in the killing of seals. We learned when 
the returns for the first season’s catch were 
made that the skins were assorted into four¬ 
teen or fifteen classes. A small number—less 
than ten per cent.—ranked as first-class, at 
$14 a skin ; about the same per cent, fell to 
less than $2.50 each, while the general average 
was about $5.87. This discrepancy in the value 
of the skins called attention at once to the ques¬ 
tion of what constituted the difference in quality 
between a skin worth $14 and one worth only 
$2.50. An agent of the Company was sent to 
London to examine the skins as they were 
classified for the market: the result of his ex¬ 
amination revealed the fact that the fur of a 
seal was most valuable when the animal was 
three years old, the proportion being that at 
present prices a two-year-old seal would be 
worth $15 or $16, a three-year-old $16 or 
$19, a four-year-old $16, and a five-year-old 
only $2.50. As the agent had the opportunity 
of selecting the animals before killing, he aimed 
to take as many three-year-old seals as possible, 
making out the one hundred thousand from 
those two or four years old. This trebled the 
value of the annual catch at once. Again, it 
being desirable to secure the quantity with the 
least possible loss of life, a careful supervision 
of the manner of driving the seals to the 
slaughter-ground was instituted. Very fat seals 
often become overheated in driving, and die 
from convulsions, rendering their fur valueless 
for the market. In consequence of this diffi¬ 
culty each driver is required to carry a club 
and a knife, that any seal showing indications 
of an overheated condition may be killed im¬ 
mediately and skinned. These skins are col¬ 
lected after the herd is cared for, and are 
usually equal to eight or ten per cent, of the 
whole drive. 

The cost of maintaining these fisheries is 
about $10,000 a year; the revenue obtained 
during the twenty years that the present lease 
has been running amounts to $365,000 a year. 
A careful count is made of the number of skins 
taken, each party through whose hands they 
pass keeping its own account. First they are 
counted by the chiefs, that the natives may be 
paid a proper sum; the Treasury officer in 
charge of the islands counts them when they 
are taken from the salting-houses for shipment; 
when received at the side of the vessel they 
are counted by the executive officer for his 
bills of lading; at San Francisco a revenue 
officer takes charge of them and has them 
counted; they are counted again at the ware¬ 
house in San Francisco, Avhere they are packed 


9 °3 

in one-hundred-gallon tierces and shipped to 
New York, and thence to London, where they 
are counted twice again before they are ready 
for sale. An important element in the economy 
of the business is that, by reason of the many 
improved methods used in capturing and 
handling the seals, the time required for this 
work has been materially shortened. Formerly 
the work was continued from the 1st of June 
until September, but now the whole time re¬ 
quired for taking the one hundred thousand 
skins and shipping them has been shortened to 
forty-five days. This gain in time also increases 
the value of the skins, as the fur is far brighter 
when the seals first land. 

The present lease to the Alaska Commercial 
Company expires July 1, 1890. When the lease 
was granted, in 1870, the bids were governed 
by the average price of sealskins in London, 
which had never exceeded $6. Under the 
terms of the lease the Company paid the Gov¬ 
ernment an average price of $3.65 per skin. If 
the business was profitable at that rate, the 
Government should now obtain a much larger 
share, in consideration of the trebled value of 
the skins in the London market at the present 
rime. As there should be a large increase in the 
number of seals now available, owing to the 
improved methods of killing which reserve all 
the females, a far larger number might now 
be killed annually—perhaps twice as many. 
The seals occupy as breeding-grounds about 
eight miles of coast-line, and at the beginning 
of my stay on the islands I estimated the num¬ 
ber of breeding females to be fully 1,130,000. 
When I left, eight years later, a similar method 
of computation gave 1,800,000 breeding fe¬ 
males on the ground. 

The males come to the islands the 1st of 
May and remain until about the 20th of July, 
when they scatter slowly, although a large 
number of them remain as late as Novem¬ 
ber. The males appear on the ground first, 
and soon after their arrival they begin to 
locate about a rod apart, forming a line the 
entire length of the shore. The younger and 
weaker males, beaten back by the stronger, 
coast along, entering the bays, and haul up on -« 
the hillsides and in the valleys. The greatest 
number at any one time upon St. Paul, the 
largest of the islands, is on the 20th of July, 
when we have estimated the number to be five 
millions. The seals really walk on four legs, 
raising their bodies from the ground as they 
move. Under favorable conditions they travel 
about a mile and a half an hour, and the long¬ 
est drive we ever made was eight miles. As 
England alone has the necessary skilled labor 
for preparing the skins for final sale, she re¬ 
ceives an amount of profit from the fur-seal 
fisheries equal to the whole profit of the United 


55 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


ON THE FUR SEAL ISLANDS. 


9°4 

States in the islands, and she therefore is 
equally interested in the question of wanton 
destruction of the seals. Under such circum¬ 
stances an international agreement for the pro¬ 
tection and regulation of the trade ought not 
to be difficult to obtain. 

The Fur Seal Islands lie nearly in the middle 
of Behring’s Sea, the nearest mainland being 
three hundred miles away to the north. When 
discovered in 1789 they were uninhabited, al¬ 
though traces of firebrands gave proof of earlier 
visitors. The islands are four in number — 
St. Paul, St. George, Otter, and Walrus, the 
former being the largest, though but fifteen 
miles long. It is triangular in shape, and fur¬ 
nishes ninety per cent, of the whole number 
of seals. The average mean temperature for 
the year is about the same as that of New 
England, though it is cooler in summer and 
warmer in winter. The islands are of volcanic 
origin, but around the shores accumulations 
of marine sand have been washed up by the 
sea, which high winds have driven over the 
rocky surface, forming a light soil. The moist 
climate has clothed this with a thick vegeta¬ 
tion, and in the valleys and lower plains a 
wild grass resembling rye abounds, which fur¬ 
nishes excellent feed for horses and sheep. On 
the hillsides great masses of purple lupine grow, 
and a thick moss-like plant is found, which 
bears a delicious berry, and is much used for 
making wine as well as for cooking purposes. 

On the whole group of Aleutian Islands 
there were 8000 people, and on the Fur Seal 
Islands about 400. A few of the men from the 
latter had been to Sitka on Russian vessels, 
and two or three had been taught enough of 
the Russian language to allow them to act as 
clerks in keeping accounts with the natives, 
but the great body of the people had never 
been from home. They had no money, and 
trade was chiefly a barter. The houses were 
merely turf huts, half underground, and the 
only fuel was seal blubber, and seal flesh and 
blubber almost the only food. For lighting 
their huts they also used seal oil, in small dishes 
with floating wicks, and of course the ceilings 
* were always sooty. The necessity for improved 
habitations was evident, and later when the seal¬ 
ing company holding the lease offered to build 
houses and permit the natives to live in them 
free of rent, no time was lost in accepting the 
generous proposal. Before I left St. Paul there 
had been built small cottages of three rooms 
sufficient to house every family on the island. 
The people were so convinced of the necessity 
of keeping their habitations underground for 
warmth that at first we could not convince 
them that houses could be made comfortable 
in any other way. We passed through various 
stages of unsatisfactory yieldings to this preju¬ 


dice, but our last houses were the best, and were 
built on high ground, uncompromisingly above 
the earth. A skillful mechanic was brought out 
by the sealing company, and under his guid¬ 
ance the natives soon became sufficiently ex¬ 
pert to assist very materially in building. After 
a row of foundations, the length of the street, 
had been made ready, the people were divided 
into three gangs, who were soon able to put up 
one of these houses and finish it in a day. One 
gang laid the sills and floors, another set up 
the frame and boarded the house laid the 
day before, and the third shingled the roof and 
clapboarded the walls of the one framed two 
days before. We introduced furniture as quick¬ 
ly as possible, and it was not long before the 
islanders were as comfortably situated as are the 
average employees in any manufacturing com¬ 
munity. 

It was interesting to note the difference in 
character crop out as the community gradually 
took upon itself civilization. Some were natu¬ 
rally prudent, and easily saved a surplus; 
others would be in debt at the end of the year. 
In 1877 a small proportion of their number, 
perhaps ten per cent., had invested about ten 
or twelve hundred dollars with the Fur Com¬ 
pany; another ten per cent, were always in 
want; the remainder spent what they received. 
The best paid class, the ablest workers, received 
over four hundred dollars each for their sea¬ 
son’s work, and as they could obtain a large 
part of their food from the resources of the isl¬ 
and without cost, and received their houses 
furnished, rent free, their needs were few. To 
foreign ways in clothes and fashion they in¬ 
clined very naturally. The year before my 
coming sealing-parties had brought to the 
island considerable quantities of ready-made 
clothing as an article of trade, and the men 
were consequently fairly well dressed; but only 
a small quantity of cloth suitable for dresses 
had been taken, and the women had not be¬ 
gun to make their clothing in any regular form. 
But in time, with some assistance, their ready 
adaptability made them a very well-dressed 
people. Before I came away the wives of those 
who had been saving sent their measures to 
Sitka with orders for silk dresses for church 
wear, and the young men arrayed themselves 
in broadcloth, wore gloves and well-blacked 
boots, and carried perfumed handkerchiefs. 

As my time was not fully taken up with my 
duties, and good fortune brought to me an 
abiding place of unusual size for St. Paul, I 
seized the happy chance of making my house 
a meeting-place for the people, and especially 
for the children. Later we fitted up a school¬ 
room, which we also made a place for social 
entertainment, and kept the school open eight 
months in the year. We were greatly assisted 


56 





The First Three Managers ♦ Bryant 


in our school duties by illustrated books and 
papers sent to us; for so unvaried and barren 
was the scenery of the island, which was all 
of the world these children had ever seen, that 
it was well-nigh impossible for them to com¬ 
prehend physical objects of the simplest nature. 
What a mountain might be was beyond their 
understanding, and the difficulty of explaining 
the appearance of a great forest to children 
who knew no vegetable growth larger than the 
purple lupine on their gentle slopes was greater 
than one can tell. It was necessary, however, to 
exercise the strictest censorship in our illustrated 
lessons, as it was difficult for all to comprehend 
caricature even in its simplest forms; even the 
most impossible pictures they believed repre¬ 
sented facts. 

I found the people living in separate fami¬ 
lies, and, as far as I could see, there was no 
more immorality among them than would be 


found in any decent civilized community. The 
women were modest in deportment, the chil¬ 
dren obedient and respectful to their parents, 
and the men always manifested a disposition 
to assist me in all my efforts. 

In character they were mild and gentle, with 
the expression of settled melancholy habitual 
to those races which have no amusements. In 
this respect, however, they changed greatly as 
opportunity developed the merriment latent 
in their nature. The children when first taught 
to speak did so in a serious way, and the utter 
absence of anything like hearty laughter in a 
group of them always affected me strangely. 
It seemed as if their avenues of expression 
were closed to pleasure, and later, when they 
had learned the simple games I taught them, 
it was a great satisfaction to me to hear my 
rooms ring with their merry voices. 

Charles Bryant. 


Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Captain Bryant deposed for the Fur-Seal Arbitration on April 16, 1892, before Notary 
Public Sevellon A. Brown at Washington, D.C. 

I am a resident of Mattapoisett, Plymouth County, State of Massachusetts, and am 72 
years of age. In September, 1868,1 was appointed a special Treasury agent to go to Pribilof 
Islands for the purpose of investigating and reporting as to the habits of the fur seal, the 
condition of the islands, and the most advantageous plan to be adopted for the government 
and management of the same. Pursuant to such appointment, I proceeded to the Pacific 
coast, and in March 1869 I landed on St. Paul Island, remaining there until September 
of the same year. I then returned to Washington and laid my report before the Treasury 
Department. I again went back to the islands in July, 1870, and remained there until the 
fall of 1871. Then, in April, 1872,1 again arrived at the islands, this time in the capacity of 
a special agent of the Treasury Department in charge of the seal islands. I was upon the 
islands as such agent from that time and during the sealing season from 1872 to 1877. 

When I first visited the seal islands in 1868 [1869?] the natives were living in semi¬ 
subterranean houses built of turf and such pieces of driftwood and whalebones as they 
were able to secure on the beach. Their food had been prior to that time insufficient in 
variety, and was comprised of seal meat and a few other articles, furnished in meager 
quantity by the Russian Fur Company. They had no fuel, and depended for heat upon the 
crowding together in their turf houses, sleeping in the dried grasses secured upon the 
islands. Forced to live under these conditions they could not of course make progress 
towards civilization. There were no facilities for transporting the skins. They were carried 
on the backs of the natives, entailing great labor and hardship.... 

Very soon after the islands came into the possession of the American Government all this 
was changed. Their underground earthen lodges were replaced by warm, comfortable 
wooden cottages for each family; fuel, food, and clothing were furnished them at prices 
25 percent above the wholesale price of San Francisco; churches were built and school 
houses maintained for their benefit, and everything done that would insure their constant 
advancement in the way of civilization and material progress. Instead of being mere 
creatures of the whims of their rulers they were placed upon an equal footing with white 
men, and received by law a stipulated sum for each skin taken. So that about $40,000 was 
annually divided among the inhabitants of the two islands. In place of the skin-clad natives 
living in turf lodges which I found on arriving on the island in 1869,1 left them in 1877 
as well fed, as well clothed, and as well housed as the people of some of our New England 


57 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


villages. They had school facilities, and on Sunday they went to service in the pretty Greek 
Church with its tastefully arranged interior; they wore the clothing of civilized men and 
had polish on their boots. All these results are directly traceable to the seal fisheries and 
their improved management. 

In addition to this the Alaska Commercial Company, as previously stated, had introduced 
far better facilities, such as boats, horses, mules, and carts, for transporting the skins, and 
improved methods of caring for them.” 78 


Samuel A. Falconer (Falkner) (1831-1915) 

Deputy Collector of Customs, Territory of Alaska, U.S. Department of the Treasury, 
September 1868-September 1869 

Purser, Hutchinson & Kohl Steamer Constantine, September 1869-October 1870 
Assistant Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. George Island, October 1870- 
October 1876 


Genealogy 

Samuel (Falkner) Falconer 9 was born September 
19, 1831, at Lancaster, Glengarry County, 

Ontario, Canada, the son of James Falkner 
(1798-1859) and Anne Hay Falkner. He lived 
on the Falkner homestead at Lancaster until his 
marriage to Ellen McKenzie of Williamstown, 
Ontario Township. Samuel and Ellen Falkner 
had three children: Ellen Elizabeth; Annie, who 
married Fred Fleming; and Alexander “Sandy” 
Falconer, who became owner of a hardware store 
in Deloraine, Manitoba, Canada. 80 The family 
records presently acquired do not make clear 
whether Ellen McKenzie Falkner died before or 
after Samuel came to the United States in 1863. 

In California in 1880, after his Alaska service, 
Samuel was married again, to widow Josephine 
Erwin Beckman (1850-1905). Joesephine had 
two children by her previous marriage, William and Lillian Beckman. Lillian (1870-1946) 
married German-born Baron Albert von Steiger, who was killed by Yaqui Indians near 
Ures, Mexico, February 25, 1906, 81 while traveling to his Mexican gold mines. 

The 1885 Dakota Territory census showed the Samuel Falconer family residing in 
McLean County with three children under the age of five; Ida, Frank, and Alfred. Ida 
Daisy was born September 17, 1880, in California, and eventually married Albert 
Swanson of Iowa in 1905 at Wilton, North Dakota. She died March 6, 1978, at the age of 
ninety-eight. Frank Robert (“Francis”) 82 was born in January 1883 in the Dakota Territory. 
Alfred Manley was born in April 1885 in Dakota Territory and died in Minneapolis, 



Samuel Falconer, 1870. (Courtesy 
Elizabeth Healy.) 


58 








The First Three Managers ♦ Bryant -Falconer 


Minnesota, in 1948. A fourth child, Howard, was 
born into the Falconer family in November 1886, 
also in Dakota Territory; he married, had two chil¬ 
dren and later moved to Seattle, Washington. 83 

Biographical Sketch 

At the age of thirty-two, in July 1863, Samuel 
Falconer crossed the St. Lawrence River and 
landed at the Port of Ogdensburg, St. Lawrence 
County, New York. The Civil War had begun in 
1861, but it is not apparent that he entered the 
military service. 

Beginning in 1868, Samuel Falconer served 
the government in Alaska for eight years. 84 He 
was Collector of the Port at Sitka during the 
Ulysses S. Grant administration and later repre¬ 
sented the federal government looking after the 
seal fisheries in the Pribilofs. 

President Andrew Johnson issued an 
Executive Order August 26, 1868, designating 
Sitka a port of entry in the newly acquired District 
of Alaska. 

The port of Sitka in said Territory, is hereby 
constituted and established as the port of entry for 
the collection district of Alaska, provided for by 
said act;... the shippers giving to the Collector of 
Customs at the port of shipment, bonds in which 
it shall be conditioned that articles will, on their 
arrival at Sitka, be delivered to the Collector of 
Customs or the person there acting as such, to 
remain in his possession and under his control until 
sold or disposed of by such persons as the military 
of chief authority in said Territory may specify. 85 



Samuel Falconer, sons Howard and Frank, 
and Frank’s wife Katheryn with baby 
Jean. (Courtesy Elizabeth Healy.) 



In his annual report of December 1, 1868, 
Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch an¬ 
nounced “the appointment of a collector [Samuel 
Falconer] to reside at Sitka, who left for his post 
in September last.” 



Ida “Daisy” Falconer. (Courtesy Elizabeth 
Healy.) 


A gentleman from this Department accompanied him to assist in establishing the 
collection service on a proper foundation, and in perfecting arrangements for the 
prevention of smuggling. Recognizing also the vast importance of reliable information on 
matters not immediately connected with these objects, but having nevertheless a most 
important bearing upon them more or less direct, another agent, long familiar with that 
country [Charles Byrant], was at the same time dispatched with directions to apply himself 
to the ascertainment of its natural resources, the inducements and probable channels of 
trade, and the needs of commerce in the way of lights and other aids to navigation. He was 


59 
















Pribilof Islands: The People 



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60 






























The First Three Managers « Falconer 


also particularly entrusted with a supervision of the fur interests and the enforcement of 
the law prohibiting the killing of the most valuable fur-bearing animals. 86 

Hiram Ketchum Jr., Collector of Customs for the District of Alaska, officially ap¬ 
pointed Samuel Falconer on December 14, 1868, as Special Deputy Collector of Customs 
for the District of Alaska in the Territory of Alaska. 8 Ketchum and Falconer, along with 
Charles Bryant, as noted in Bryant’s January 5, 1869, letter (see Bryant’s biography for ex¬ 
cerpts of the letter), had left the port of New York on September 16, 1868, on the steam¬ 
ship Ocean Queen, headed for San Francisco enroute to the Territory of Alaska. 88 


Initfii States of America. 

§£tt#w all men l)» thrsr presents, y . Ce ,. 4 

/ //, ,1 cf&fy* „/ 

,» jy tl j.'J ,/ n. ' A, y Grtrtaf m 7* appoint oeputize £ 

-- Sf/,^7 £7 r /.„t y ./ a, EZhj&UJ- jUm.4, /. C«u» i. W 

/'J P m ”77 l7c/*mrU. ..*</ </<",/,:y „/.e„ m . ... jJLf </!&, 

&MJ*y J, U y W/W M 3f,«y 7, */,7 /»,„ jn/ne 7y 

aat/ »f(vjwy rtfi’jcurc, t/tju/t/t/y cP t/ra/4. 

^>iiril tt at/cP mjt Pun,/am/j«a/cf yfiee, t/u t/„y - f'<‘c'A.TVt.J? r.^x- > m //„ 

yap <y cap Ja/cft/ vac tAw>nm/ tty ft fuat/ict/ a at/ uj-ty- 



S r''p/r 




Hiram Ketchum’s appointment of Samuel Falconer as Deputy Collector of Customs, 
District of Alaska, December 14, 1868. (Courtesy Elizabeth Healy.) 


Once settled into his position at Sitka, Falconer took part in the social life of the town. 
An invitation from Madame Kadvilavansky, the wife of Archpriest Pavel Kadvilavansky 
(1834?—1878) of Sitka, 89 read: “Madam Kadvilavansky presents her compliments to Mr. 
Falconer and requests the pleasure of his company at the house of Mr. Ivanoff at half past 
six o’clock this evening Monday December 21st 1868.” 90 

Other events included a military ball. Captain Charles Bryant wrote of Sitka’s federal 
presence at the time: “It consists of the military garrison and its necessary accompani¬ 
ments of soldiers [or] about three hundred including officers, next in rank is the civil 
service, this is represented by one collector of customs, one deputy, two special agents; 
one for revenue purposes the other for general observation and one clerk.” 91 The color¬ 
ful invitation to the ball given by the “Officers of the Army, Navy, Revenue Service and 
the Citizens of Sitka” on February 8, 1869, was sent to Falconer by the “Committee of 
Arrangements” consisting of U.S. Army—William M. Dennison and Charles P. Eagan; 
U.S. Revenue Service— J. R. Delan; and U.S. Navy— E. W. Bridge. 92 


61 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


lfl(f lCCcl.Osirt— 


C’tTtt'L jl /eJn-e .« /r foc^ria -r Ico-yver? find >ee ttesJs 

j/J // / /. / /_ /, 

/Ae Jil£asu.re. £~l. /its /L/xn </_ y£ 

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/Lotise. c^. isWrcsE/fart ° 

J’/.t e'c Ac/l //,> 


^G.do-<.i& c CCItsAli 

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is Cf-Jit,Fix*- 7 *y— & J- /A-e. 

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im-d-Ck-^- f^LaiLn-i- 

Madam Kadvilavansky’s invitation to Samuel Falconer, December 21, 
1868. (Courtesy Elizabeth Healy.) 




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11110 fk 

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OXTittrs .*£ fr 

77/vttif, *4 t?//f y /Zt'/t'/ttf*' jSr/wrfS 
S/Z/y/rA vf /Sr Z/fsr ^\\ 


oSlotibatt wiuti^ ^ J"?bruftr^ 8^ 1869. 


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7Aw /* Tin? *7/tit 77 JS 77 

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7/y//r//t/77/'f y F7/z-rt//^r//t*///;¥ 


Samuel Falconer’s invitation to the military ball, Sitka, February 8, 1869. 
(Courtesy Elizabeth Healy.) 


62 









The First Three Managers ♦ Falconer 


Samuel Falconer’s duties as Deputy Collector of Customs gave him the right to con¬ 
fiscate illegal cargo, such as liquor coming into the Territory of Alaska. One of his confis¬ 
cations was protested by the captain of the bark Monticello in 1869. 

Sitka, Alaska Tery Feby 27 1869 
Mr. Samuel Falconer 
Deputy Collector of Customs 
Sitka, A. T. 

Sir: 

We, the undersigned, Master and Supercargo of the Am. Bark Monticello, now lying in the 
port of Sitka and bound for St. Pauls’ island and other ports in Alaska Territory, do hereby 
protest against the seizure under your authority of one qr. Cask of whiskey (40 galls). We 
claim that the said whiskey was put on board the said Bark at Honolulu H. I. in good faith 
in ignorance of any law prohibiting the importation of liquor in the said Territory—that 
on ascertaining the existence of such a law we represented to you our readiness to execute 
sufficient bonds, that the said whiskey should not be landed in the Territory or used in 
trading with Indians. We further claim that we had not up to the time of the seizure of 
the said whiskey violated any law not having made any attempt to land the same and [not] 
having intention of violating any law. 

J [Jeremiah] Potts Master of Bk [Bark] Monticello 
I Bates Dickson, Supercargo of Bk Monticello 93 

The Monticello was next seen at St. Paul Island on March 26, 1869, by Inspectors of 
Customs, Mr. La Grange and Joseph Wilson, who arrived prior to Special Agent Charles 
Bryant to take possession of the island for the government. “On our arrival we found the 
bark Monticello laden with trading goods from the port of Honolulu in the Sandwich 
Islands. 94 We at once notified the captain, in accordance with our orders that he could not 
land his cargo, and he immediately departed.” 95 

In 1882, following his Pribilofs experience, Samuel Falconer settled in North Dakota 
and engaged in the ranching and stock-raising business along the Missouri River, eight 
miles from Wilton, North Dakota. 96 The township bore the name Falconer. A post office 
with Samuel Falconer as postmaster was established April 14, 1884, on the Old River 
Stage Road between Bismarck and Washburn. On June 4, 1890, he received a deeded 
homestead of 160 acres in Falconer, North Dakota. 

The Falconer long, low log house, which served as a home and post office, was about 10 
miles southeast of Washburn. 97 

Falconer swore to his intention to become a citizen of the United States on April 12, 
1883, in Burleigh County, Dakota Territory; his citizenship was sealed February 7, 1889, 
at the same location. After he had led a farmer’s life for over twenty years, the citizens of 
Wilton elected Samuel Falconer Justice of the Peace in their April 8, 1912, election, ac¬ 
cording him the title of Judge Samuel A. Falconer. He held the position until his sudden 
death in 1915. 98 


63 




Pribilof Islands: The People 



) T J S SyAzAL Z^c^z, S^fAzz z Sf 

AAzT'/^FzzzZZz , 27^7' , y ~~ S?T7 / <£& /^ArrA S,A cAAcA^ 

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A<A /?/LzAiy ^Z7L/ J&ct/ Z'Zl AzTzAfAA ulj ffzlzAffZ--/' ' 
tyyi^aJc^ AtJtA^lAAjfcczzA . /V? ^szzrzz^c^ ^AAczy', 
Au<r AtcAc/Auc* AtD Z?Zt/^AtAczo^ /AAAzzrTr- ST? zCTzc. SrZ-t^cT 
(?&? /Ay 2>t z^^z^yazzzzf^ aAA /py^z^z /Cs 

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tAcfrlzuc, - Afo<j(c*z&r d/tHcAu AA/ /zzez Aaff >z^rA~^ 

Azzl& pjAtzAo <Augjit4Xj z^y yyy ‘Ai-c.y 'Z-z Az 
zQzz^ ¥AlS~- 7tsA AAz-zcz^ Aza^y. Z/zzy z/fAzff//^ . 



The protest sent by 
officers of the bark 
Monticello to Deputy 
Collector of Customs. 
(Courtesy Elizabeth 
Healey.) 


Samuel Falconer’s 
Certificate of 
Citizenship, 
February 7, 

1889. (Courtesy 
Elizabeth Healey.) 



District 5ocirt. 


pai^ota gerritory. f 


MKW 4WMMAL 9 mm. MMLBDCM OOVHTY, 

Sc it f^eme.mbe.re.d, That on the day of. c//Au, 


Lord, One Thousand Eight 
the District Court, said Court being 
Clerk and Seal, and applied to the said Court to be admitted to 


Hundred and 


U.t tS 


64 






















The First Three Managers ♦ Falconer 


Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

According to a news article in the Wilton, North Dakota, newspaper Wilton News, Samuel 
Falconer was requested to meet with President Rutherford B. Hayes and Secretary of 
State James G. Blaine in 1892, some sixteen years after his Pribilof Islands career ended. 

An investigation of alleged irregularities in the seal fisheries during the administration of 
President Hayes, required the presence of Mr. Falconer in Washington City as an expert 
witness and while in the Capital City he met many prominent men, including President 
Hayes and James G. Blaine." 

Falconer received a letter from Secretary Blaine dated and posted on April 7, 1892, 
calling him to Washington, D.C.: 

It is desired on behalf of the United States Government that you will come to Washington 
in order to make a statement of your knowledge of fur seal matters on the Pribilof Islands. 

It will be most convenient to the Government if you can reach here on or about the 14th 
or 15th instant. On your arrival in Washington please report to Mr. John W. Foster at the 
Department of State. You will be paid your traveling expenses and a per diem while in this 
city. I have to request that upon receipt of this letter you will advise Mr. John W. Foster, at 
the Department of State, by telegraph, when you may be expected. The telegram will be 
paid here. 100 

Two weeks after the Blaine letter was written, Samuel Falconer deposed for the Fur- 
Seal Arbitration at Washington, D.C., on April 19, 1892. His testimony, recorded by 
Samuel Brown, provided an historical outline of his government service in the Territory 
of Alaska and on the Pribilof Islands. 

I am 61 years of age, and am now a wool grower by occupation. My residence is Falconer, 

McLean County, State of North Dakota. In 1868, during the month of October I went to 
Sitka, being located there as deputy collector of customs, in which position I remained 
until September, 1869.1 then was employed until September, 1870, as purser on board the 
steamer Constantine, plying monthly between Port Townsend and Sitka. 

In 1870, in the month of October, having been appointed assistant Treasury agent for the 
seal islands in Bering Sea, I proceeded to said islands, and from that time until August, 

1876,1 remained constantly in charge of St. George Island, excepting during the winter 
of 1874-75. For a few days during each one of these years I visited St. Paul Island, never 
remaining there for any length of time.... 

In 1873,1 assisted Prof. Henry W. Elliott in making his measurements and estimates of the 
number of seals on St. George Island. We set up stakes at some distance from the breeding 
rookeries while they were occupied. Then when the seals were gone we sighted along these 
stakes to determine the back lines of the rookeries and measured the areas thus determined 
with a tape line, using our judgment by observing the nature of the ground to determine 
the curvature of these areas. We then calculated from our observations three seals to a 
square yard, and multiplying the yards in the areas measured by three made our estimate. 101 

Henry W. Elliott’s calculation of the average number of fur seals per square yard even¬ 
tually proved grossly inaccurate. 102 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

After serving as Deputy Collector of Customs in Sitka and later purser aboard the 
Hutchinson & Kohl vessel Constantine, Samuel Falconer was appointed Assistant Agent 
for the U.S. Department of the Treasury and was assigned to the Pribilof Island of St. 


65 








Pribilof Islands: The People 


George. Agent Charles Bryant made the appointment and apparently possessed authority 
to do so, although he required confirmation, as explained in his letter from St. Paul Island 
to the Honorable George S. Boutwell, Secretary of the Treasury, Washington, D.C., dated 
October 19, 1870. 

Sir: On the 9th instant 103 the steamer Constantine, belonging to the Alaska Commercial 
Company [formerly owned by Hutchinson & Kohl], arrived here, bringing to me a letter 
of the collector of customs at San Francisco.... I found on board the Constantine, as 
passenger, Mr. Samuel Falconer, late deputy and acting collector at Sitka, who stated to me 
that he had left the service of Hutchinson, Kohl & Co., and would offer his services to the 
Government. 

Having in view the desire expressed to me by Mr. Buynitzky, in July, to be relieved this 
fall from his temporary duties at Saint George, in consideration of urgent family matters 
requiring his presence at Washington, I thought it advisable to avail myself of Mr. 

Falconer’s offer, and, by letter of the 10th instant, I appointed him, subject to the approval 
of the Department, assistant special agent [Assistant Agent], at a compensation of $6 
per diem; and after his filing the customary oath of office, I instructed him to proceed, 
together with myself to the island of Saint George. On the 12th instant we sailed over to 
Saint George, where he relieved Mr. Buynitzky, who was thus made free to proceed to 
Washington. 104 

Falconer went to work before receiving official approval from the Treasury Secretary 
of his appointment by Capt. Bryant. His first report of conditions on St. George covered 
the period from his appointment of October 1870 to May 14, 1871. It read, in part: 

I was not long a resident of the place until I found, to my astonishment, a higher degree 
of civilization existing among them [native population] than I anticipated; and I am 
happy to add in reference to this that the new arrivals who are in the employ of the Alaska 
Commercial Company proved to be no ways detrimental to them in their ideas but on 
the contrary assisted them in carrying out this order of civilization into a higher degree 
of perfection. Indeed, I can not speak too highly of Mr. Brown, the agent of this company, 
who has been very particular in carrying out the conditions of the agreement between the 
company and the Government, and the many other acts of kindness shown them in aid of 
their comfort has rendered him quite a favorite among them. 

The company has furnished abundance of everything that is necessary for the comfort and 
sustenance of life, and from the very low prices charged on many of the principal articles 
has left no room for complaints. 

In speaking of these people, I may safely state that I know of no class of the human race 
that enjoy themselves any more than they do. Scarcely has an evening passed over their 
heads but they have engaged in dancing or some other amusements. 

On the 1st of November last a school was reestablished for the natives, the attendance of 
which numbers about 25, and from the advanced state they were left in by our friend Mr. 

Buynitzky it was no difficult task to get along with them. They are making rapid progress, 
and feel anxious to learn the English language. Men who have advanced to the age of 30 
and 40 attend school and [are] making equal progress. 

The temperature of the weather I kept, and used Fahrenheit’s thermometer. For the last two 
months of the year 1870 the mean temperature ranged as follows: For November, 30.80; 

December, 28.60; for January, 1871, mean 30.04; February, 23.22; March, 14.85, and April, 

32.52.... On the 2d of this month the ice made its appearance and landed on the north 
side of the island in a limited quantity, but day after day it forced its way along from the 
north until it made a complete bridge between this island and that of St. Paul. Indeed, I am 
of opinion that the whole surface of the sea to the north of this was a solid sheet of ice. In a 
report given by a former agent of the Territory, it was stated that the white bear was known 


66 




The First Three Managers ♦ Falconer 



Josephine and Samuel Falconer. (Courtesy 
Elizabeth Healy.) 



Samuel Falconer and granddaughter Josephine 
Swanson. (Courtesy Elizabeth Healy.) 




Baron Albert Von Steiger and wife Lillian Von Steiger. (Courtesy Elizabeth Healy.) 


67 




















Pribilof Islands: The People 


to frequent these islands. At that time I doubted the assertion, but to-day I am ready to 
indorse it. Not that I have seen any pay us a visit, but it is not but what an opportunity has 
presented itself for them to do so. 105 

Samuel Falconer served as assistant agent at St. George Island for a year and a half 
before his official certificate of appointment was received in March of 1872. Copies of 
Falconer’s Treasury appointment and instructions letters were preserved in family papers, 
and are transcribed here: 

Letter of Appointment 

Treasury Department 
March 13, 1872 
Sir: 

Under the provisions of the Act of Congress supplementary to the act entitled “An Act to 
prevent the extermination of fur-bearing animals in Alaska” approved Mar 5, 1872 you are 
hereby appointed Assistant Agent of the Treasury Department at a compensation of $8.00 
per diem. 

You will also be allowed your necessary traveling expenses in going to, and returning from 
Alaska. 

I am very respectfully 
Geo. S. Boutwell 
Secretary 


Letter of Instruction Regarding Certificate of Apointment 

Treasury Department 
Washington, D. C. March 15, 1872 

Sir: 

I transmit herewith for your official use, a certificate of your appointment as an Assistant 
Agent of this Department. You will observe that this certificate is to be surrendered to the 
Department at the close of your term of office; and as it is designed to cancel the certificate 
given to each Agent upon his retiring from office, you are required to return the same to 
the Department at the proper time and previous to the settlement of your final account. 

I am very respectfully 
Geo. S. Boutwell 
Secretary 106 

Falconer’s supervisor, Agent Charles Bryant, issued his new assistant agent the fol¬ 
lowing assignments (excerpted) on April 24, 1872: 

Sir: You are hereby assigned for duty and placed in charge of Saint George Island. It will 
be your duty to see that the laws of the United States concerning the taking of fur-seals 
under the lease with the Alaska Commercial Company are observed; that the natives are 
protected in all their rights.... 

You are furnished with a blank book to keep a record of the following objects, said book to 
be kept on the island for future reference. 

1st. To prepare a list which will give the full name, sex, age, and condition, whether married 
or single or widowed, of every man, woman, and child now living on the island. 

2d. To prepare a list which will show the number of families and names of members living 
on the island. 


68 







The First Three Managers ♦ Falconer 



/ f s s sS 


/ , / / ■ y . x A ■ ' , 

/ / / /' A / ■ / - / ■ / s', ■ 


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72 


/■ - ' / ^ / / 

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/ - tp. ft ft •/./ y -. 


/ ■/' ■. ■ {/. <£'*/'// 



Appointment letter to 
Assistant Agent Samuel 
Falconer, March 13, 1872 
at a per diem of $8.00. 

(Courtesy Elizabeth 
Healy.) 


3d. Keep an accurate record of marriages, births, and deaths, and the cause of their death, 
as they occur. 

4th. Keep an accurate record of changes and removals, arrivals of the natives to and from 
the island. 

5th. Keep a daily journal of the weather, together with any observations or remarks that are 
likely to be of future use to the general interests of the island. 

Assistant Agent Francis Lessen, a copy of whose instructions is here-with transmitted to 
you, will report to you to assist in the performance of these duties. 107 

Samuel Falconer proved industrious in his responsibilities as assistant agent for the 
Treasury Department at St. George Island, as documented in his annual reports. Before 
his retirement in October 1876, he assisted in the development of the island’s infrastruc¬ 
ture, along with the agents of the Alaska Commercial Company. In 1872, he helped with 
the construction of the first wooden Native houses and a house for government employ¬ 
ees. By 1873, he had outlined roads and plank walkways, and built barns and a workshop. 
He had a well dug for drinking water in 1874, and saw to the construction of a new church 
and school building, both completed in October 1876, just before he left government 


69 








Pribilof Islands: The People 


service. Other detailed descriptions of St. George Island during this period are found 
in Emma J. McIntyre’s letter to her mother (presented later in her biography). Emma’s 
husband, William McIntyre, was the second assistant agent for the Department of the 
Treasury at St. George Island and served with Samuel Falconer. The following two seg¬ 
ments of Falconer’s 1873 and 1874 yearly reports offer an intimate, detailed picture of life 
on this island. From the 1873 report: 

The material for the Government house, landed here by the steamer Alexander in 
August last, was erected according to plans and specifications, with this exception, a rock 
foundation was placed underneath the building instead of posts, as the plan provided, 
there being good material near at hand for that purpose. I also found it necessary to erect 
an addition 9 feet square inclosing the back door, and furnishing a suitable place for water, 
coal, etc. 


The labor account for the erection of this building amounted to $377, as per vouchers 
herewith enclosed; also please find bills to the amount of $159.97 for necessary articles 
purchased for the use of the building in all, $536.97. 

I may here state that the foundation when complete cost about $100 extra. Thus making an 
additional expense, but as there were no posts on the island suitable for the purpose I was 
compelled to use the rock, which is, in my opinion, well worth the difference. 

The laborers were paid according as the work progressed through the kindness of the 
Alaska Commercial Company, and at the same rate per diem as paid by said company when 
employed by them. 


Much difficulty was experienced during the erection from the continuous rains and general 
foul state of the weather. In consequence of this there was but one other building erected 
last season - by Mr. Adams, the company’s agent, which was finely fitted up for a store, the 
old one having been converted into a schoolhouse. In September last the company’s bark 
Cyane landed a large quantity of lumber for native houses, but their erection was prevented 
for like reasons already stated. 108 



In August of 1874, Falconer addressed his yearly report directly to Secretary of the 
Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow rather than per protocol as an attachment to Agent-in- 

Charge Charles Bryant’s annual report, as he had 
previously done. Falconer’s nine-page report in¬ 
cluded not just a general overview of activities 
at St. George Island during the previous year but 
also greater detail about the “habits and peculiar- 

f ities of the fur seal.” 109 Falconer had been assisted 


Samuel Falconer in Dakota Territory. 
(Courtesy Marilyn Valkenburg and Steven 
R. Day.) 


during the 1873-74 season by fur-seal expert 
Henry W. Elliott. (Elliott submitted to Secretary 
Bristow his 277-page Report Upon the Condition 
of Affairs in the Territory of Alaska, November 
10, 1874, which was printed by the Government 
Printing Office in 1875.) During this time, Elliott 
had been critical of Agent Bryant’s reporting of 
the fur-seal conditions in his communications to 
Professor Spencer Baird of the Smithsonian. 110 
One may infer from Elliott’s overt behavior that 
he also exerted influence on Falconer to submit 


70 









The First Three Managers ♦ Falconer 


his (Falconer’s) annual report directly to the Secretary of the Treasury over the head of 
his supervisor, Bryant. Statements made by William H. Dali, Acting Assistant-in-Charge 
Alaska Coast, U.S. Coast Survey, in his November 14, 1873, letter to Spencer Baird sup¬ 
port such an inference (see Charles Bryant’s biography). In his letter, Dali also mentioned 
that Falconer was a great friend of Elliott’s. 111 Falconer’s 1874 report, excerpted below, 
described the physical nature of the island, the habits of the fur seal and the seals' breed¬ 
ing grounds, aspects of the seal harvesting, sea lions, and interesting details about the 
Native population. Regarding the Natives, one will note that Falconer’s 1874 report was 
in marked contrast with his 1871 report, presented above, respecting the eagerness of the 
Native population to learn English. 

There is on the south side of the island a small sea-lion rookery, where these animals 
number about 4,000. The greater portion of them remain around the island all winter, or 
until the ice drives them away. A great many are taken by the natives during this season for 
food, the flesh being of a much finer quality and flavor than that of the fur seal. The skins 
are used by the natives in the construction of bidarkas and bidarrahs (native boats). 112 

As is well known, the natives were brought by the Russians from the Aleutian Islands and 
were upon the island when it was ceded to the United States. They are of a dark copper 
color, with long, lank, and black coarse hair. The beard is very defective and never makes 
any appearance until the man is well advanced in years, and then only a few straggling 
hairs. Their medium height is below that of the European, with a few rare exceptions.. 

.. They are good natured and cheerful, at times slightly irascible, but are never cruel or 
overbearing except when under the influence of quas. m They possess one trait of character, 

I think, peculiar to themselves; that is, they never harbor revengeful feelings. I have known 
them to express a dislike for a person, but when he had left the island, perhaps never to 
return, they remembered only the kindness they received at his hands and never spoke ill 
of him. They are industrious, but not avaricious, and always appear ready and willing to 
obey the summons of their chief or the agents of the company or the Government. 

In their expenditures many of them are prodigal. This, however, may be partly attributed 
to the voluntary generosity of the company in providing for them comfortable houses 
rent free, furnishing them good wages for their labor, and supporting their widows and 
orphans. 114 

They are all members of the Greek Church and appear very much attached to their faith, 
which I have always encouraged, as I have found that their church exercises a strong 
influence over them for good. 

The worst evil they are addicted to is quas drinking. This is a kind of beer they brew 
from flour and sugar, and sometimes from a small berry that grows upon the island. 

Their educational progress has not been very satisfactory, from the fact that they have an 
antipathy to the English tongue, believing that if their children grow up with a knowledge 
of our language and customs it will alienate them from the faith of their parents, and they 
accordingly encourage the absence of their children from the school. They desire that 
their children should acquire the Russian language first, in order that they may be enabled 
to read the liturgy of their church. For this purpose and when they have had school they 
would privately teach the Russian tongue, the children all assembling at a particular house 
for this purpose. 

If a priest were stationed upon each island who would instruct them in both languages 
and give them to understand that an English education would in nowise conflict with their 
religious duties, they would in my opinion, encourage their children to attend school with 
more regularity. Their progress then would be swift and sure, as they are naturally apt 
scholars. The presence of a priest upon the island would also have a moral effect upon them 


71 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


that would be invaluable, and I would respectfully recommend to the Department that 
some provision be made for one on each island. 115 

Interestingly, and apparently unbeknownst to Falconer, Secretary of the Treasury 
George Boutwell had three years earlier authorized the assigning of Russian Orthodox 
“curates” to each island at the behest of the Orthodox bishop at San Francisco. Secretary 
Boutwell wrote on July 19, 1871: 

Sir, 

The Russian Minister has, through the Secretary of State, by letter dated the 30th of June 
1871, mentioned that the Orthodox Bishop John of San Francisco, deems it necessary, 
in order to supply the religious wants of the inhabitants of the Islands of St. Paul and St. 

George, that curates of the same religious faith should be sent to reside at said islands. 

You are therefore authorized, under and by virtue of the powers conferred on me by the 
Joint Resolution of March 3, 1869, to allow two curates who may be furnished with the 
proper testimonial from said Bishop, to proceed to the islands named for the purpose of 
taking up their residence there at - one on each island. 116 

The next day, July 20, 1871, Secretary Boutwell sent a letter to Agent Bryant: 

I transmit herewith for your information and guidance, a copy of the Department’s letter 
of the 19th instant, to the Collection of Customs at Sitka, Alaska, authorizing curates 
furnished with proper testimonials from the Orthodox Bishop John of San Francisco, to 
reside upon the Islands of St. Paul and St. George. 117 

Whether Agent Bryant shared this correspondence with Assistant Agent Falconer 
was not determined, nor is it clear that the Orthodox Church made any attempt to move 
a priest to St. George Island until Father Innokenty Lestenkof became the resident cleric 
in 1882. 

Samuel Falconer remained in government service as assistant agent of St. George 
Island until the appointment on October 1, 1876, of Colonel George Marston of New 
Hampshire. 


72 




The First Three Managers ♦ Falconer 


1 Milovidov surname spelling varies throughout the biography as found in source documents. The 
Register (Descendant Order) number system, established to show pedigree, is used here: [#] of 
descendants from the originator [1], 

2 St. Paul Island Agents Logs, 1873-1911; vital family data from Ancestry.com and other noted 
sources. 

3 Richard A. Pierce, Russian America: A Biographical Dictionary (Kingston, ON: Limestone Press, 
1990), 358. 

4 Ibid. 

5 Sannie Kenton Osborn, “Death in the Daily Life of the Ross Colony,” PhD diss. (Milwaukee, WI: 
Univ. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 1997), 367. 

6 Ibid., 375; note: “The Ross Colony was administratively part of the Sitka Parish,” 431. 

7 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1895, 388. 

8 Ibid., 388-9. 

9 A photo of Marcia, Margaret, and Alexander Melovidoff along with Nadesda and Nicolai Orloff was 
printed in The Washington Post, Nov. 11, 1890. 

10 The spelling of the surname “Shaiashnikoff varies among authors. Fredericka Martin employed the 
spelling Kaysan Shayashnikov.” The spelling used herein, "Shaiashnikov,” was taken from Pierce, 
Russian America, 451. Pierce described “Kasian” Shaiashnikov as a longtime manager for the 
Russian-American Company at St. Paul Island. 

11 Fredericka Martin Papers (unpaginated), History, box 12, Pribilof Islands folder, Arctic Encyclopedia 
Archives, University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Much of the information regarding Alexander Milovidov's 
arrival and summary of duties at the Pribilof Islands derives from an unpaginated draft manuscript 
by Fredericka Martin, provided courtesy of the Archives, University of Alaska Fairbanks. Martin’s 
draft typically lacked reference to any supporting documentation for her historical statements. 

12 Ibid. 

13 The Hutchinson-sponsored census with the English translation is provided in Betty A. Lindsay and 
John A. Lindsay, Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Genealogy and Census, NOAA Tech. Memo. NOS ORR 18 
(2009). 

14 Lindsay and Lindsay, Genealogy and Census, 82. 

15 The quoted material is taken from the St. Paul Agent’s Log, Jan. 1, 1873, 15 (census section); St. Paul 
Agent’s Log, 126, July 21, 1873 comment on Henry Elliott’s marriage to Alexandra; and U.S. Senate, 
Fur-Seal Arbitration, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, convened at Paris under the Treaty 
between the United States of America and Great Britain, concluded at Washington February 29, 

1892, for the determination of questions between the two governments concerning the jurisdictional 
rights of the United States in the waters of Bering Sea, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1895), 131 n3, 
which provided an interesting reference to a letter dated May 1, 1864 “from the Chief Manager of 
the Russian American Colonies to Mr. Milovidof, Manager of St. Paul Island, vol. 1, 89”—the pres¬ 
ent authors examined Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 1, 89, but were unable to find the cited letter. The 
Fur-Seal Arbitration series contains a sixteenth volume, not recognized as volume 16 but rather 
titled “Facsimiles or Documents in the Alaskan Archives, Department of State of the United States, 
To Accompany The Case and Counter-Case of the United States as Presented to the Tribunal.” 
Following the internal cover page, the document begins with a title, “Russian Correspondence 
Relating to the Affairs of the Russian American Company.” The aforementioned letter attributed to 
Mr. Milovidof may be within this sixteenth volume. The authors have come across other citations of 
various page numbers within the sixteen-volume set of U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, and again 
were unable to find the referenced material. We conclude, rightly or wrongly, that the page numbers 
cited in the original draft were correct for the draft, but upon setting for publication, page numbers 
cited within the narrative were not changed to reflect changes in the typeset copy. 

16 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, Jan. 1, 1873, 15 (census page). 

17 Nybom arrived in San Francisco on his brig Constantine, which was loaded with seal pelts, in Mar. 
1868 (see Nybom’s biography), and Milovidov did not die until 1870, so presumably Nybom could 
have concluded his arrangement with Milovidov if he had desired to. 

18 Henry Wood Elliott correspondence on “Congress of the United States, House of Representatives, 
Committee on the Territories” letterhead, Sunday, Apr. 2, 1922, to his daughter, courtesy of Alex S. 
Milovidoff. 


73 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


19 Robert L. Shalkop, Henry Wood Elliott, 1846-1930: A Retrospective Exhibition (Anchorage: 
Municipality of Anchorage, 1982), 20. 

20 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1896, 451. 

21 Ibid., 1876, 394, 413. Anton left St. Paul for Unalaska on Mar. 16, 1876, aboard the Alaska 
Commercial Company schooner General Miller, he debarked with Agripina on May 20, 1876. 

22 Ibid., 1890, 294. 

23 Ibid., 1876, 486-7; and 1879, 84. 

24 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, June 10, 1892, 142. 

25 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, June 10, 1887, 4. 

26 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 2, 335. 

27 The reader is reminded that the spelling of “Shaiashnikov” varies in written records, and these au¬ 
thors have tried to simplify the reading by using a single spelling for this surname. 

28 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, July 30, 1879, 102; May 31, 1883, 298; July 24, 1884, 347; June 2, 1887, 

12; Aug. 15, 1888, 80; June 4, 1890, 225; Pierce, Russian America, 451-2; and U.S. Census, Alaska 
Territory, Unalaska Village, Unalaska, 1900-1930. 

29 U.S. Census, 1910. 

30 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1892, 442. 

31 State of California, Dept, of Health Services, California Death Index, 1940-1997, Sacramento, CA. 

32 Ibid. 

33 State of California, Dept, of Health Services, California Birth Index, 1905-1995, Sacramento, CA. 

34 Shalkop, Henry Wood Elliott, 12. 

35 U.S. Congress, House, "Report from the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries of the House 
of Representatives,” in The Fur-Seal and Other Fisheries of Alaska: Investigation of the Fur-Seal and 
Other Fisheries of Alaska. 50th Cong., 2nd sess., H. Rep. no. 3883 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1889), 
264-7. 

36 Simeon Melovidov testified before a congressional investigation in 1888. During the course of 
testimony he stated that he had attended school in Napa, California, at the expense of the Alaska 
Commercial Company. U.S. Congress, House, Investigation of the Fur-Seal, 266. 

37 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries and General Resources of 
Alaska 1 [aka Alaska Industries ], 54th Cong., 1st sess., Doc. no. 175, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: GPO, 
1898), 271. 

38 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, Jan. 1, 1892, 433. 

39 Ibid., June 29, 1911. 

40 Ibid., June 19, 1911, and Aug. 25, 1911. 

41 Simeon Melovidov’s annual salary was $1,200. U.S. Congress, House, Appendix A to Hearings Before 
the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Commerce and Labor. House Resolution no. 73. 
To Investigate The Fur-Seal Industry of Alaska, 62nd Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, DC: GPO, 1911), 
1,013. 

42 The records stated that many of the islands’ Natives had saved over $2,000 in 1910. U.S. Congress, 
House, Appendix A, 1,017. In 1925, Simeon Melovidoff, Sr. wrote his reflection about life on St. Paul 
Island. He did not account for his reasons for leaving the Pribilofs, but he did address the quality of 
life. "The people on the islands are allowed in large measure, to govern themselves. In former years 
they selected their own chiefs, who dealt directly with the people and were in turn dealt with by the 
government official. Now the government agents appoint a man, who acts as an overseer.” (p. 4). 
“They [the Natives] pay nothing for rent, taxes, medical attendance or schooling and for [the] largest 
part of the year they get their meat free. (p. 4). “Under Government control the natives are much 
better off than [the] great majority of the working class anywhere in the world. They are housed in 
concrete and electrically lighted, comfortable homes. There is a wireless station and movie picture 
shows free of charge. Now since [the] seals herd increased, their earnings will increase and in time 
will even become wealthy.” (p. 5) “There are no Commercial Banks, but all the natives savings are 
kept for their accounts—at 4% in San Francisco Banks, and the accrual interest paid them annually.” 
(p. 6) “Two school houses presided by two competent teachers, where only English is taught.” (p. 6). 
“Diet of these people in summer is mostly, fresh seal meat, cod fish, and halibut; in winters rein¬ 
deer, salted meats and canned meats—canned vegetables + fruit and potatoes comprise their daily 
diet.” (p. 7). A photocopy of Simeon’s seven-page discourse was provided to the authors, courtesy of 
Simeon’s grandson Alexander Steele Melovidoff. 


74 





The First Three Managers 


43 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 145. 

44 Personal communication between Alexander Simeon Melovidoff’s son, Alexander Steele Melovidoff, 
and Betty Lindsay. 

45 Special Collections, Redpath Chautauqua Collection, University of Iowa Library. 

46 “Haskell Institute, located at Lawrence, is one of the industrial or trade schools maintained by the 
United States government for the education of Indian girls and boys. The institute was founded in 
1882 through the efforts ot Dudley C. Haskell, then a member of Congress. The citizens of Lawrence 
donated 280 acres of land lying south of the city for a site and Congress appropriated $50,000 for the 
erection of buildings.” Frank Blackmar, ed., Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, vol. 1. Chicago: 
Standard, 1912. 

47 Alexander Steele interviews. 

48 Tacoma Public Library, Photography Archive notes, series A17712-2 and A9604-1. 

49 Alex Melovidoff speaking of his WWII experience. Oral History Tape, Voices ofWWII. Army/ 
Aircorps/POW. Olympia, WA: Bristol Productions. 

50 Craig E. Bryant, “The New England Bryant Genealogy Site,” Ancestry World Tree at Ancestry.com; 
Boston Biographical Review, Biographical Review Containing Life Sketches of Leading Citizens of 
Plymouth County, Massachusetts (Boston: Biographical Review, 1897), 326-7; and Charles Bryant 
grave monument, Sherman Cemetery, Rochester, MA, Oct. 2003. 

51 Oct. 2003 interviews with Town Administrator Jim Huntoon, Rochester, MA; Rochester Historian 
Pam Robinson; and Charles S. Mendell Jr. These individuals were instrumental in gathering regional 
biographical information on Charles Bryant. 

52 U.S. Congress, House, Committee of Ways and Means, Report Regarding the Alaska Commercial 
Company Lease of the Fur-Seal Islands, 44th Cong, 1st sess., H. Rep. no. 623, June 3, 1876, 95-7. 

53 David Hunter Miller, The Alaska Treaty (Kingston, ON: Limestone Press, 1981), 114. 

54 Charles Sumner, “Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts on the Cession of Russian 
America to the United States,” Washington, DC: Congressional Globe Office, 45-6. 

55 Archie W. Shiels, The Purchase of Alaska (College, AI<: Univ. of Alaska Press, 1967), 64. 

56 Ibid., 102. 

57 George Harrington Taber IV (1801-1901), Taber Family Papers, MSS36; S-gl3, ser. A, S-51, folder 1, 
8 pp., Old Dartmouth Historical Soc. Library, New Bedford, MA. 

58 http://www.ohwy.eom/ma/n/n0191238.htm (accessed May 13, 2009); and http://www.kinsaleinn. 
com/ (accessed May 13, 2009). 

59 Ibid. 

60 “He dictated to me, when not too tired, some of the prettiest stories of his life when at sea and in 
foreign countries. His friend Mr. Altinson (sp.?) wrote me at that time that we could make a nice 
sum for both of us by their publication.” Letter from C. E. Cabot to Samuel Falconer, July 16, 1903, 
courtesy of Elizabeth Healy. 

61 C. E. Cabot, “A Chapter of Alaska,” New England Magazine 11, no. 5 (Jan. 1895): 588-96. 

62 Capt. Bryant’s niece, Janetta B. Pierce, taught school on St. Paul Island. U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, 
Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries and General Resources of Alaska, vol. 1 (1898), 100. 

63 Boston Biographical Review, Biographical Review Containing Life Sketches, 326-7. 

64 Mary Hall Leonard, “Old Rochester and Her Daughter Towns,” New England Magazine, no. 5, July 
1899. 

65 U.S. Congress, House, Investigation of the Fur-Seal, 153. 

66 William Gavitt Death Notice, http://browning.evcpl.lib.in.us/newsearch/carddetail.asp (accessed 
Nov. 17, 2003). 

67 The word “breading” is an apparent typographic error. The authors examined the log and found the 
word “breaking” was used in the sentence. “Whaling Voyage to the North Pacific Ocean through 
the Atlantic and Southern Indian Oceans 1844-45,” Captain Isaac J. Sanford, Log of the vessel 
Champion, New Bedford, MA, New England Microfilming Project, Nov. 13, 1970, PMB film no. 

263, doc. no. 72, ref. 360, Old Dartmouth Whaling Museum, Old Dartmouth Historical Soc. and 
Whaling Museum, New Bedford, MA. 

68 Others besides Bryant have been credited with providing Senator Sumner with the arguments used 
to ratify the purchase of Alaska, e.g. the Billings and Belcher Voyage explorers; Russian Telegraphic 
Expedition members; and the Smithsonian’s Spencer F. Baird, Henry D. Rodgers, William H. 

Dali, and Louis Agassiz; in addition, the Library of Congress provided manuscripts by explorers 


75 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


Langsdorff, Cook, et al.; see also James Alton James, The First Scientific Exploration of Russian 
America and the Purchase of Alaska (Chicago: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1942). 

69 Capt. Charles Bryant biography transcribed with permission from the son of Mr. Charles Mendell, 
Mr. Charles Seth Mendell Jr., member of the Mattapoisett Historic Museum, Mattapoisett, MA. 

70 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 9, Appendix To the Argument of the United States 
(Washington, DC: GPO, 1895), 212. Neither Charles Bryant nor Hugh McIntyre visited St. George 
Island during 1869. U.S. Congress. House. 1898. “Special Agent Bryant: Annual Report for 1873.” In 
U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries and General Resources of 
Alaska. Vol. 1, 41. [Also published as U.S. Congress. House. 55th Cong., 1st sess. H. Doc. 92, pt. 1.] 

71 Pribilof Islands Collection, folder 9, Charles Bryant, University of Alaska Archives, Fairbanks, 
Alaska. The archives identify George S. Boutwell as the signatory of the letter. However, McCulloch 
remained Secretary until Mar. 3, 1869. Boutwell did not become Secretary under the new adminis¬ 
tration of Ulysses S. Grant until Mar. 12, 1869. 

72 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1, 15. 

73 Ibid. 

74 Excerpt from p. 9 of Letter of the Secretary of the Treasury Communications, Reports of Captain 
Charles Bryant, U.S. Congress, Senate, 41st Cong., 2nd Sess., S. Ex. Doc. no. 32 (Washington, DC: 
GPO, 1869). 

75 U.S. Congress, House, H. Doc. no. 92, pt. 1, 15-6. 

76 Ibid., 21. 

77 Letter from William H. Dali to Spencer F. Baird, Nov. 14, 1873, 4 pp., Smithsonian Institution 
Archives, RU 7002, box 18, folder 23, “1873.” Allegations and counter-allegations about inappropri¬ 
ate behavior by whites plagued the Pribilof Islands, especially in the early decades. Dali had written 
other damning allegations within the body of this letter regarding illicit activities of the ACC, but 
those paragraphs in Dali’s letter were excluded from the reproduction as unrelated to Henry Elliot’s 
condemnation of Captain Bryant. The U.S. Congress eventually conducted an investigation of the 
ACC; we do not know whether Dali’s allegations supported the investigation, but the allegations put 
before the investigators were found to lack merit. 

78 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 3-9. 

79 Samuel and his brother William changed the spelling of the family name from Falkner to Falconer 
not “in the late 1880’s to alleviate the confusion in receipt of mail” as otherwise suggested, but 
sooner, as Samuel was using that spelling in 1868. One can only speculate this change occurred 
when they immigrated to the United States from Canada. Samuel’s niece, Hazel L. Falconer, noted 
the 1880 date as family oral tradition in her genealogy notebook, and it was transcribed in the 
book Burleigh County: Prairie Trails to Hi-Ways, by Bauman and Jackman (Dallas: Taylor, 1978). 
Unfortunately, the genealogy notebook contained numerous inaccuracies about Samuel’s Alaska 
work, and in turn these inaccuracies were included in the Bauman and Jackman publication, as well 
as other family history publications. For example, Samuel’s appointment to the post in Sitka, his job 
description, and how he obtained it are reported incorrectly. Samuel’s Customs appointment did 
not come from Secretary of State Robert Lansing, credited with the appointment, as Lansing was 
only four years old in 1868; he served as Secretary of State from 1915-1920. Also, Samuel never 
wrote a book on the fur-seal rookeries although he did assist Henry W. Elliott in measurements 
and gathered information for Elliott’s 1873 publication. Hazel Falconer spent many years collecting 
family history; the notebooks of her work are with Dorothy Falconer, Bismarck, ND. Pages 139-42 
are referenced here. 

80 Sandra Anderson, Montreal, Canada; Ancestry.com; Steven R. Day, Mukilteo, Washington, phone 
conversation with Betty Lindsay, Oct. 15, 2005; and Hazel Falconer family history notebook, 141. 

81 “Von Steiger Met Death Fighting with Worthless Guns Supplied by Government,” Bismarck Daily 
Tribune, Mar. 17, 1906, 3. 

82 "Francis” was Frank Robert’s christened name. Hazel Falconer family history notebooks, 141, cour¬ 
tesy Dorothy L. Falconer, Bismarck, ND, Oct. 2005. 

83 Dakota Territory Census Records, 1885, North Dakota State University Library, Bismarck, ND. 

84 Pioneer Citizen Stricken Sunday. Judge S. A. Falconer Passes Away,” Wilton News (Wilton, ND), 
Dec. 24, 1915,; and North Dakota Heritage Center, State Historical Society, Bismarck, ND. 

85 Emil Teichmann, A Journey to Alaska in the Year 1868: Being a Diary of the Late Emil Teichmann 
(New York: Argosy-Antiquarian, 1963), 190; and “Washington,” New York Times, Aug. 26, 1868, 5. 


76 




The First Three Managers 


86 Hugh McCulloch, “Report of the Secretary of the Treasury,” Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 
Dec. 1, 1868, 18. 

87 Samuel Falconer Certificate courtesy of Elizabeth Healy Private Collection, Lynnwood, WA. 

88 “Passengers Sailed,” New York Times, Sept. 17, 1868, 8; and U.S. Supreme Court, Kinkead vs. United 
States, 150 U.S. 483, 502-4, 1893. 

89 Pierce, Russian America, 225. 

90 Invitation courtesy of Elizabeth Healy Private Collection, Lynnwood, WA. 

91 Taber Family Papers, 7. The two special agents referred to in the letter were Charles Bryant and 
Hugh McIntyre. 

92 Invitation to the Officers Ball of the Army, Navy, Revenue Service and the Citizens of Sitka, Feb. 8, 
1869. Courtesy of Elizabeth Healy Private Collection. 

93 J. Potts Esq. Master of Bark Monticello to Samuel Falconer Dept. Collector protesting against the sei¬ 
zure of one quarter cask whisky, Feb. 27, 1869, courtesy of Elizabeth Healy Private Collection. 

94 The bark Monticello of New London, Conn., was one of thirty-one whaling ships lost in the Arctic 
ice in Nov. 1871. “Polar Sea Perils, Particulars of the Loss of the Arctic Whaling Fleet,” New York 
Times, Nov. 14, 1871, 2. 

95 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries and General Resources of 
Alaska, vol 1, 9-10. 

96 “Obituary, Samuel A. Falconer,” Wilton News (Wilton, ND), Dec. 24, 1915, front page. 

97 Mary Ann Barnes Williams, Pioneer Days of Washburn, North Dakota (Washburn, ND: Mary Ann 
Barnes Williams, 1936), 108. 

98 Naturalization Records, State Historical Society of North Dakota, Bismarck, ND; Dakota Territory 
Census Records 1885, North Dakota State University Library, Bismarck, ND; McLean County, ND, 
Bureau Land Management Records, Warranty Deed; McLean Township’s History, http://www.roots- 
web.com/~ndmclean/McLeanTownships/; City Clerk, City of Wilton, ND; and “Obituary, Samuel A. 
Falconer,” Wilton News. 

99 “Pioneer Citizen Stricken Sunday. Judge S. A. Falconer Passes Away,” Wilton News, Wilton, ND, Dec. 
24, 1915, 1; and North Dakota Heritage Center, State Historical Society, Bismarck, ND. 

100 Letter courtesy Elizabeth Healy. 

101 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 160-3. 

102 Victor B. Scheffer, Clifford H. Fiscus, and Ethel I. Todd, History of Scientific Study and Management 
of the Alaskan Fur Seal, Callorhinus ursinus, 1786-1964, NOAA Tech. Rep. NMFS SSRF-780, 1984, 
9. 

103 The term “instant” was routinely used to mean "in the present month,” in comparison to "ultimo” to 
mean “in the preceding month.” 

104 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries, 38-9. 

105 Ibid., 22-3. 

106 Secretary of the Treasury George S. Boutwell to Samuel Falconer, Mar. 1872: Appointment as 
Assistant Agent to the Dept, of the Treasury; Instructions in reference to certificate of appointment. 
Transcribed from the original, courtesy Elizabeth Healy. 

107 U.S. Congress, House, “Letter from the Secretary of the Treasury, Transmitting, in Response to 
Resolution of the House of Representatives, Information Relating to the Seal-Fisheries in Alaska,” in 
Seal Fisheries in Alaska, 44th Cong., 1st sess, Ex. Doc. no. 83, Washington, DC: GPO, 101. 

108 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1, 48-9. 

109 Ibid., 53. 

110 H. W. Elliott to Spencer F. Baird, May 1873, SIA RU 7002, box 19, folder 29, 2. 

111 William H. Dali to Spencer F. Baird, Nov. 14, 1873, 1, SIA RU 7002, box 18, folder 23, “1873”. 

112 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1, 60. 

113 Quas has been described as a sour Native beer. Other common spellings are “quass” and “qvass.” 

114 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1, 60. 

115 Samuel Falconer notebook journal, courtesy of Elizabeth Healy Private Collection; and U.S. Dept, of 
the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1, 60-1. 

116 George S. Boutwell to William Kafrus Esq., Collector of Customs, Sitka, Alaska, July 19, 1871. 
Pribilof Islands Coll., folder 9, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Archives. 

117 George S. Boutwell to Capt. Charles Bryant Esq., Special Agent, Treasury Dept., St. Pauls Island, 
Alaska, July 20, 1871. Pribilof Islands Coll., folder 9, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Archives. 


77 





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78 


























The Russian Orthodox Church 

ON THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS 


The Russian Orthodox faith, or Orthodoxy, 1 permeated Native life throughout the 
Aleutian Islands and became no less important in the Seal Islands. First introduced by the 
Russian promyshlenniki and merchants such as Gregorii Shelikov, and later (from 1794) 
aided by missionary monks, Russian Orthodoxy was accepted by the Unangan/Unangas 
as their own faith for reasons best explained by experts on the subject (see Veniaminov, 
Notes on the Islands of the Unalashka District, 1984; Afonsky, A History of the Orthodox 
Church in Alaska, 1794-1917, 1977; and Oleksa, Orthodox Alaska: A Theology of Mission, 
1992). The Russian-American Company, established in 1799, furthered the spread 
of Orthodoxy beyond the Aleutians, such that it became the predominant faith in the 
Territory of Alaska during the 19th century. 2 

Russian-American Company employees, including many Aleuts, built the first chapel 
at St. George Island in 1833 using driftwood collected along the shoreline. 3 They dedi¬ 
cated the chapel to Sv. Georgii Pobedonosets, or St. George the Victor. 4 The little chapel 
survived until it was replaced in 1876. 

In 1897, Alexander Kedrovsky, Dean 
of the Unalaska Region, with the as¬ 
sistance of the St. George Island priest, 
Father Rafael Kedrovsky, consecrated 
the 1876 chapel as St. George Island’s 
first church, Church of St. George the 
Victorious, Holy Martyr. 5 


Sv. Georgii Pobedonosets, or St. George 
the Victor Chapel, St. George Island. The 
chapel was constructed of driftwood in 1833. 
Image from a stereograph taken by Alaska 
Commercial Company Superintendent, Dr. 
Hugh H. McIntyre, 1872. (Courtesy of Hugh H. 
McIntyre, grandson of Dr. Hugh H. McIntyre.) 



79 





Pribilof Islands: The People 



Chapel constructed in 1840, St. Paul Island. 
This image (cropped) was taken by Alphonse 
Louis Pinart, circa 1871. (Courtesy Bancroft 
Library, Univ. of California Berkeley.) 



In 1934, construction began on a new place 
of worship to replace the deteriorating Church 
of St. George the Victorious, Holy Martyr. 6 
In 1936, Bishop Alexii consecrated the new 
Church of St. George. 7 The St. George Island 
Agent and Caretaker, John W. Lipke, noted in 
his Annual Report of 1935: 

It is the Agents understanding that all materials 
for the construction of this church are to be 
furnished by the natives, all the labor is to be 
furnished by the Bureau of Fisheries, and then 
only at times when it will not interfere with other 
Government [sic] work. 8 

Agent Lipke had moved to St. Paul Island 
by the time of the 1936 Annual Report, which 
was submitted by Agent and Caretaker Lee. C. 
McMillin, who wrote: 

Natives this year [1936] are building themselves 
a new church. It is considerable [sic] bigger than 
the old one. Has a full basement and will be 
heated by a furnace. Material and supplies for 
this has been paid for from the Church funds. 

This is exclusive of their canteen funds. At 
present writing the church is nearing completion 
altho it will take them quite a while to finish it 
as they are only allowed to work in it during 
working hours only when it will not interfere 
with the Bureau’s activities. 

Rt. Rev. Alexy [Alexii], Bishop of Alaska, spent 
the winter on St. George as priest of the Church 
in place of Rev. Shabanoff who is out to the 
States on vacation. Bishop Alexy expects to 
dedicate the New Church before he leaves in 
May. 9 


Chapel, St. Paul Island, constructed of 
driftwood in 1840. The image is from a 
stereograph taken by Alaska Commercial 
Company Superintendent Dr. Hugh 
H. McIntyre, 1872. (Courtesy Hugh 
H. McIntyre, grandson of Dr. Hugh H. 
McIntyre.) 


During WWII, the St. George church served 
as a chapel for troops of all faiths stationed on 
the island, and its bell tower was used as a look¬ 
out post. 10 Forty years after the war the Aleuts 
received compensation for damage inflicted by 
U.S. military troops upon churches throughout 
the Aleutians as well as on St. Paul and St. George islands. As amended, the Aleutian 
and Pribilof Islands Restitution Act of 1988 authorized a Congressional appropriation of 
$4.7 million to restore six churches. A report by the Aleutian-Pribilof Islands Association 
(APIA)— Making It Right: Restitution for Churches Damaged and Lost During the Aleut 
Relocation in World War II —helped determine the level of compensation. 11 Finally, in 
1997-98, the Church of St. George the Victorious was renovated at a cost of $771,368. 12 


80 
















The Russian Orthodox Church 


A chapel built in 1821 on St. Paul Island 
was dedicated to St. Peter the Apostle. 13 Like 
the first chapel on St. George Island, it was 
constructed of wood rather than sod (many of 
the dwellings were of sod). In 1840, a new and 
larger chapel was built using funds provided by 
the Russian-American Company. 14 

In 1869, two years after the cession 
of Russian America to the United States, 
President Ulysses S. Grant sent Special Indian 
Commissioner Vincent Colyer to the Pribilof 
Islands. Colyer’s report on his St. Paul Island 
visit included only one reference to the church: 

The priest, who officiates in a neatly-built 
church, receives one hundred and thirty dollars 
per annum. He is not in orders, and hardly 
ranks as a deacon in the church. The priest from 
Unalaska occasionally comes up and administers 
the sacrament. 15 

The first full-time priest came to St. Paul 
Island in 1875. Under the terms of a 20-year 
lease awarded by the U.S. government to the 
Alaska Commercial Company (ACC) in 1870, 
the ACC had the right to harvest 100,000 fur 
seals per year in the Pribilofs, but it also had 
responsibility for maintaining the welfare of the 
Aleut residents. In 1873, the ACC began efforts 
to replace the Russian-American Company 
chapel at St. Paul Island with a church. In that 
regard government Agent Charles Bryant wrote 
in his annual report dated September 20, 1873: 




Saints Peter and Paul Church (1875-1905), 
built by Hamden McIntyre, St. Paul Island, 
1890s. (NAA, Joseph Stanley-Brown Lantern 
Slide Coll., lot 54-245.) 

- 


St. George Village, St. George Island, 1890s. 
(NAA, Joseph Stanley-Brown Lantern Slide 
Coll., lot 54-405.) 


The [Alaska Commercial Company] steamer 
[Alexander] also brought two carpenters from 
San Francisco to frame and build a church for the 
natives, the people of both Saint Paul and Saint 
George having last year agreed with the Alaska 
Commercial Company to furnish the materials 
and a part of the labor for this purpose, to pay for 
which a fund nearly sufficient has been already 
accumulated, by setting aside for that object two 
first-class shares of the seal fund annually. The 
materials have since then been landed on the 
islands, and the church on Saint Paul has been 
raised and boarded, and will be completed before 
another year; that on Saint George will be built 
during the ensuing winter. 16 



St. George the Victorious Church (1875- 
1936), St. George Island, 1890s. (NAA, 
Joseph Stanley-Brown Lantern Slide Coll., 
lot 54-295.) 


81 














Pribilof Islands: The People 


The company apparently sent two additional carpenters, Messrs. Mossman and 
Davidson, from San Francisco to help the Natives build the church. 17 The Church of 
Saints Peter and Paul was completed in 1875. How much the ACC contributed to the 
cost is unclear, as the records were likely among those lost during the 1906 San Francisco 
earthquake, but much of the cost was donated by the St. Paul Island Native sealing crew. ls 
Several anecdotal notes about the church were found in government agents’ logs, ex¬ 
cerpted here: 

June 29, 1876 
Church Bells 

They raised the nine bells to the Belfry of the new church today. They went up as nice as 
a pin, the largest but one was raised at just half past ten A.M. We stood and saw it go up 
into place fast and easy as one could snatch a kiss. The bells were cast in Boston, the whole 

weight of the nine._(illegible)_lbs. They cost here some $3,000 about $1,000 was for 

freight & percentage. They came from Philadelphia by the Alaska Commercial Company's 
new Steamer St. Paul as she came round to San Francisco to run on this line. The Co. 

Agents had told us all winter that the Alaska Commercial Co. was going to give the bells to 
the Church, but it turns out to be a near relative to the widows Support Stories. 19 

May 20, 1877 
Church Dedication 

The new Greek Church was dedicated today by Father Euakenta Shaisnekoff of Ounalaska 
assisted by Father Paul Shisnekoff of this place. Service was from 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. At 
the close of the services Father Euakenta addressed the people relative to an order of the 
Treasury Agent prohibiting the manufacture and use of beer on the two islands.... thanks 
were extended by the priest on the part of the people to the Alaska Commercial Company 
for the interest manifested by the company in the building of the church. Also, to Mr. 

Hamden W. McIntyre the architect and builder. The edifice was commenced in 1873 and 
has cost the people $14,000.00.” 2 ° 

The buildings on the Pribilof Islands are exposed to harsh weather, and all the build¬ 
ings show it. The 1875 church soon required replacement. In 1905, San Francisco architect 
Nathaniel Blaisdell began work on the island’s fourth place of worship. The design did not 
include the traditional onion domes. On August 14, 1907, Bishop Innocent (Pustynsky) 
consecrated the new church, located a bit north of the church it was replacing. 21 

The St. Paul church endured insults similar to those inflicted on the St. George 
church during WWII. On June 6, 1980, the U.S. Department of the Interior included 
Saint George the Great Martyr Orthodox Church and the Church of Saints Peter and 
Paul on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2001, funds made available by the 
Aleutian and Pribilof Islands Restitution Act of 1988 led to the full restoration of the 
Church of Saints Peter and Paul. In 2007, in celebration of its one hundredth year, the St. 
Paul Island community, led by Father Maxim Isaac, constructed and placed a traditional 
onion dome atop the church’s bell tower. 

In 1975, community leader Agafon Krukoff Jr. summarized the importance of the 
church to the people of the Pribilof Islands: 

The people have known Christianity all their lives, as did their forefathers. During the hard 
years of dictatorial rule under the Russian flag and continuing under the American flag, the 
Orthodox Church gave them their only hope for freedom. And now, nearly 200 years later, 


82 




The Russian Orthodox Church 



Church of the Holy Great Martyr Saint 
George the Victorious, St. George Island, 
late 1930s (Courtesy William Manderville, 
SG80.) 


Church of the Holy Great 
Martyr Saint George the 
Victorious, St. George Island, 
late 1930s. (Courtesy William 
Manderville, SG81.) 




Right Reverend 
Archimandrite Theodosius 
blessing Zapadni Chapel, 

St. George Island, circa 
1936-37. (Courtesy William 
Manderville, SG85.) 


83 










Pribilof Islands: The People 







the ugliest of the hardships are gone; the Church 
to them has proved its strength. The Orthodox 
Church still stands and with a full congregation 
that is still supported by the whole population of 
St. Paul [and St. George]. 22 

The Russian Orthodox faith was the foun¬ 
dation of inner fortitude for the Pribilof Islands 
Unaagin during their lives under the oppressive 
administrations of both Russia and the United 
States. For this reason, we have included gene¬ 
alogies when the information was readily avail¬ 
able and biographical sketches as a tribute to 
the Seal Islands’ clergy up to circa 1983, when 
direct U.S. oversight of the islands came to an 
end. 


Saints Peter and Paul Church and grave¬ 
yard (on right) with cemetery in back¬ 
ground, St. Paul Island, 1952. (NARA, 
Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, 22-RB- 
1952-30.) 



Ekaterina Krukoff 
with child outside the 
Government House (near 
right) with the new Church 
of Saints Peter and Paul in 
the background, St. Paul 
Island, 1907. Also shown 
is a Russian-American 
Company cannon (lower 
left). (NARA, Pacific 
Alaska Region, Anchorage, 
U.S. Bureau of Fisheries 
Photographs, 1907-1921.) 


84 
















The Russian Orthodox Church 



Procession leaving the new Church of Saints Peter and Paul, St. Paul Island, 1907. (NARA, 
Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage. Photo: Walter I. Lembkey. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries 
Photographs, 1907-1921.) 



Saints Peter and Paul Church, St. Paul Island, with the new onion dome constructed by 
Reverend Father Maxim Isaac, August 29, 2007. (Photo: NOAA, David Winandy.) 


85 
























Pribilof Islands: The People 

Pribilof Islands Clergy—St. George Island 


St. George Island was served by visiting clergy from San Francisco or Unalaska until 1882, 
except for brief intervals during transitions. The Agents’ Logs would typically note these 
visits, for example: 

On the 29th ultimo [July 1872] the company’s steamer H. M. Hutchinson touched here, 
having on board the Rev. Father Nickoli, who attended to the spiritual wants of the people 
and performed the marriage ceremony for eight couples. 23 


Resident Priests on St. George Island 24 


1882-1895 

1896-1898 

1898-1930 

1932-1935 

1935-1936 

1937-1961 

1963-1964 

1970-1978 

1979-1982 


Reverend Father Innokenty (Innokenti) M. Lestenkof 

Father Rafael Kedrovsky 

Father Peter Kashevarof (Kashevarov) 

Father Stefon (Stephan) Shabanoff 
Bishop Alexii (Alexay) Panteleev 
Archimandrite Theodosy Kulchitsky 
Reverend Father Michael Lestenkof 
Reverend Father Elary Gromoff 
Father George Pletnikoff 


1882-1895: Reverend Father Innokenty (Innokenti) M. Lestenkov 
(Lestenkof) (1832-1895) 

Genealogy 

[1] Lestenkov, Reverend Innokenty, b. 1832, Attu Island, Russian America, tall, thin, short red¬ 
dish hair, blue eyes, 40-50 ish?; d. May 14, 1895 25 

m. Elisaveta (Elizabeth) Petrov of Atka, b. September 17, 1834, Bering Island, Russia; d. 

April 15, 1899, St. George Island, Alaska 

[2] Dimitri (Dimitrii, Demetri, Dimitry), b. May 27, 1862, Atka, Russian America 

[3] Helena, b. May 21, 1867, Atka, Russian America; d. May 14, 1894, St. George 

Island, Alaska 

[4] Mary, b. February 9, 1870, Atka, Alaska 

[5] Michael, b. September 30, 1873, Atka, Alaska 

[6] Sarah, b. August 27, 1877, Unalaska, Alaska 

[2] Lestenkov, Dimitri, b. May 27, 1862, Atka, Russian America; d. April 27, 1928, St. George 
Island, Alaska 

ml. Alexandra Vickaloff (1884), b. 1868 on St. George Island, Alaska, daughter of Platone 
Vickaloff and Kickolea; d. February 2, 1889 of consumption 

[2a] Alexander, b. September 3, 1885; d. January 3, 1886, St. George Island, Alaska 
[2b] Inis (Anna), b. September 21, 1887, St. George Island, Alaska 
Mark Merculief, adopted, b. 1885 of Oulian Merculief, daughter of Kuprien Merculief 
m2. Alexandra Tetov (Tetoff) (August 30, 1897), St. Paul Island, Alaska, b. circa 1879, St. 


86 






The Russian Orthodox Church 


Paul Island, Alaska 26 

[2c] Constantine, b. September 27, 1898, St. George Island, Alaska; d. December 30, 

1943 

[2d] Peter, b. February 04, 1903, St. George Island, Alaska; d. July 08, 1903 
[2e] Agnes, b. January 25, 1906, St. George Island, Alaska; d. November 26, 1906 
[2f] Elizabeth, b. September 01, 1907, St. George Island, Alaska; d. March 13, 1994 
[2g] Innokenty, b. August 05, 1909, St. George Island, Alaska; d. January 15, 1977 
[2h] Theodore, b. June 06, 1912, St. George Island, Alaska; d. June 1996 
[2i] Michael, b. October 13, 1913, St. George Island, Alaska; d. July 11, 2003 
[2j] Ludmilla, b. September 06, 1915, St. George Island, Alaska; d. January 17, 1998 
[2k] Alvin, b. May 11, 1917, St. George Island, Alaska; d. September 27, 1920 

Biographical Sketch 

Reverend Father Innokenty Lestenkov was the “son of the manager [Mikhail Innokentovich 
Lestenkov] 27 of the Russian-American Company post at Attu Island. He first entered 
church service in 1846 and was ordained a priest in 1880. He served Unalaska until his 
departure for St. George Island where he arrived on October 3, 1882. He presided as 
priest at the Church of Saint George the Victorious until his death in 1895.” 28 



Church procession in St. George Village presided over by Reverend Father Innokenty Lestenkov (center), 
St. George Island, 1894. (Charles S. Hamlin Papers, 728-36, Archives, Alaska and Polar Regions Coll., 
Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.) 


87 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


Newly arrived in 1893, Treasury Agent-in-Charge Joseph Crowley ordered Assistant 
Agent Joseph Murray to recognize Rev. Lestenkov’s family as members of the St. George 
community. Why a family that had resided on the island since 1882 was not previously 
considered part of the community is unknown. 

The family of Rev. Innokenty Lestenkoff [sic] shall be considered as a family of natives, 
and receive supplies accordingly. His son Michael, who is a member of the family, shall in 
the matter of the distribution of supplies be regarded as its head, and orders for the family 
supplies shall be issued to him. And a double ration of coal shall be issued to the family so 
long as sickness prevails therein as at present. 29 


1896-1898: Father Rafael Kedrovsky 

Biographical Sketch 

Father Rafael Kedrovsky was born in Russia. According to church historian Barbara 
Sweetland Smith, Father Kedrovsky led a lonely life at St. George Island. Fearing that the 
residents were members of the once fearsome Tlingit tribe, he refused to eat their food, 
which consisted of seal meat and birds. During his two-year residency, Father Kedrovsky 
inventoried the church furnishings; his foresight provided invaluable information about 
the early church icons and other items. After WWII that information became an essential 
component for undertaking the church restoration. 30 


1898-1930: Father Peter Kashevarof (Kashevarov) (1857-1930) 


Genealogy 

Father Peter Kashevarof, Creole son of Father 
Peter Phillipov Kashevarof, was born at 
Kodiak, Alaska, in 1857. 31 Peter Kashevarof 
was the youngest of four brothers, the others 
being Andrew, Nicholas, and Vasillii. 

Biographical Sketch 

Peter Kashevarof served as a deacon at 
Belkofsky for twelve years before being or¬ 
dained a priest in 1898 by Bishop Nicholas 
(Ziorov). He arrived at St. George Island the 
same year and remained until his death in 
1930. 32 


Father Peter Kashevarof, St. George Island, 
December 1922. (Photo: Edward C. Johnston, 
neg. 1964. NOAA, NMML Library, Seattle, 
WA.) 



88 











The Russian Orthodox Church 



fio - 



- i 



IHL m ... 

jjM . If: V 


Father Peter Kashevarof in the Church of the 
Holy Great Martyr Saint George the Victorious. 
(NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage. U.S. 
Bureau of Fisheries Photographs, 1907-1921.) 


1932-1935: Father Stefon (Stephan) Shabanoff 
Biographical Sketch 

Father Stefon Shabanoff was said to have emigrated from Russia by way of China, seeking 
political asylum after the Russian Revolution of 1917. He eventually made his way to the 
United States and arrived at St. George Island on February 11, 1932. While on St. George 
Island, he planned to replace the sixty-year-old church with a new one. During a visit to 
Seattle in 1935 to purchase materials for the new building, Father Stefon was transferred 
to an unknown destination. 33 

1935-1936: Bishop Alexii (Alexay) Panteleev 

Biographical Sketch 

Alexander Panteleev was born in Russia and ordained a priest in his hometown of Velikii 
Ustiug, Russia. His first assignment as a priest was at Unalaska in 1910-12. While in the 
Aleutians, he traveled extensively and became fluent in the Aleut language. After serving 
as Dean of the Cathedral at Sitka and following the death of his wife, Father Alexander 
took monastic vows and assumed the name Alexii. He became Bishop of San Francisco in 
1927, and was named the Bishop of Alaska in the mid-1930s. 34 

During the winter of 1935-36, Bishop Alexii arrived at St. George Island to fill the 
vacancy left by the departure of Father Shabanoff. Bishop Alexii departed St. George for 
St. Paul Island on May 13, 1936, after consecrating the new church. 35 During his stay on 
St. George he wrote music with lyrics in Aleut for various Lenten services, and he tutored 
the island choir, which became well-respected throughout the diocese. 36 


89 


















Pribilof Islands: The People 


1937-1961: Archimandrite Theodosy (Theodosious) Kulchitsky (circa 
1885-1961) 

Biographical Sketch 

Theodosy Kulchitsky 3 " emigrated from Russia to the United States in 1909 at the age 
of twenty-four and within four years had become a monk. On September 3, 1937, “The 
Right Rev. Theodore Kulschizky [sic] arrived to take up duties as Priest for St. George 
Native church.” 38 

Theodosy Kulchitsky accompanied the St. George community when the Native 
residents were evacuated to Funter Bay during WWII. The Agent and Caretaker’s 1941 
Annual Report offered the following observation: 

Father Theodosy, listed with ‘Visitors’, is not an actual visitor, since he is priest of the 
Church here and his salary is paid by the Native Community. It just goes to show, as Father 
Baranoff once said, there are three kinds of people on the Pribilofs, viz. white employees, 
natives and priests. The same difficulty of listing him is encountered in making up the 
Annual Census, where he is simply shown separate from the Natives and Government 
Employees, with no heading. 39 

Archimandrite Theodosy continued to serve the St. George community until his 
death in 1961. He encouraged several well-respected Aleut men to become church lead¬ 
ers, including Father Michael Lestenkof, Deacon Father Andronik Kashevarof, and Father 
Paul Merculief. 40 



Archimandrite Theodosy, St. George Island, 1954. (NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, 
Anchorage, RG 370-95-ADMC-241.) 


90 















The Russian Orthodox Church 



Nikolai Merculief, Andronik Kashevarof, Archimandrite Theodosy, and an unidentified young man. 
(Courtesy Father Paul Merculief.) 


1963-1964: Reverend Father Michael Lestenkof 

See biography under St. Paul Island priests 41 

1970-1978: Reverend Father Elary Gromoff (1901-1981) 

Genealogy 

The June 30, 1906, St. Paul Island Census listed Elary (Gromof) Stepetin Jr. as the adopted 
son of Nicoli (Nicolai) and Ouliana (Iuliania and Juliana) Gromof. Under “Remarks” in 
the 1906 census, it was stated that Elary Jr. was the son of Elary and Anna Stepetin. 42 
Elary Stepetin was born in 1863 at St. Paul Island and died in 1923. 43 Anna Stepetin 
(maiden name unknown) was born at Unalaska. Elary and Anna Stepetin also had daugh¬ 
ters Ouliana Stepetin 44 and Pavla (Paola, Paula, Parla) Stepetin. Pavla Stepetin and Elary 
Stepetin Jr. were adopted by Nicoli Gromof (b. Atka) and Ouliana Gromof (maiden name 
possibly Cushing [Kushin, Kochutin?]) 45 born at St. Paul Island January 2, 1869. 

By 1916, Elary Stepetin Jr. took the last name of Gromoff Jr. 46 Elary Gromoff Jr. mar¬ 
ried Mary Tcheripanof of Akutan on May 1, 1923. Mary was the daughter of Motfer 
Tcheripanof of Akutan. 47 Elary and Mary Gromoff had three children: Smile Vick, 
Alexandra, and Augusta. 48 Smile Vick Gromoff was ordained Ishmael Vick Gromoff. 49 
Archpriest Ishmael Vick Gromoff “served as priest for many Alaskan villages, including 
Atka, Old Harbor, and Unalaska. He was also an Aleut Culture and Language instructor 
at the Unalaska City School.” 50 


91 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


The fate of Ouliana Stepetin [2] is uncertain as her name did not reappear in the 
Pribilof Islands census records after 1895. 51 Elary Gromoff Jr. died in February 1981 at Las 
Vegas, Nevada, and is interred at St. Paul Island, Alaska. 

[1] Elary Stepetin, b. July 24, 1863; d. July 4, 1923 

m. Anna (surname unknown), b. February 13, 1871, Unalaska 52 

[2] Ouliana (Ouleana), b. 1887 

[3] Pavla, b. June 28, 1892; m. William (Willie) McGlashin (1912); b. Unalaska, circa 

189i 53 

[4] Elary Jr., b. July 24, 1901 

[4] Elary Stepetin Gromoff Jr., d. February 1981, Las Vegas, Nevada 

m.l. Mary Tcheripanof (May 1, 1923), b. October 22, 1903, Akutan, Alaska; d. 1929, St. 

Paul Island, Alaska 

[2a] Smile (ordained Ishmael) Vick, b. June 30, 1924, St. Paul Island, Alaska; d. June 
6, 1993 

[2b] Alexandra (Alice), b. May 14, 1926 
[2c] Augusta, b. December 6, 1927, St. Paul Island, Alaska 
m.2. Elizabeth, b. September 01, 1907; d. March 13, 1994 

[2d] Evgania (Jeanie), b. February 27, 1935, St. Paul Island, Alaska 
[2e] Nicolai, died in childhood, St. Paul Island, Alaska 
[2f] Elary, died aged 6 months, St. Paul Island, Alaska 
[2g] Zenia (Zena), b. October 8, 1944, St. Paul Island, Alaska 
[2h] Elary Jr. (Peanuts), b. June 7, 1949, St. Paul Island, Alaska 
[2i] Piama, b. March 16, 1951, St. Paul Island, Alaska 

Biographical Sketch 

Elary Stepetin Gromoff was one of the acknowledged leaders of the Pribilovians during 
their efforts to gain access to their inherent civil rights in the 1940s and 1950s. He was 
revered for his knowledge, intelligence, and leadership abilities. Elary Stepetin Gromoff 
provided community leadership along with his brother Gabriel (Gabe) Stepetin: they 
became the first president and vice-president, respectively, of the St. Paul Chapter of the 
Alaska Native Brotherhood. Gromoff later became one of the first members of the Aleut 
Community Council on St. Paul. He participated in all the council meetings regarding 
the Pribilovians’ freedom, and he wrote letters pleading with the government for better 
treatment of the islands’ Natives. 

Elary Stepetin Gromoff ran the Point Warehouse, a storage facility for government- 
owned tools and other supplies. (The warehouse burned down in the late 1980s.) He also 
owned the only ice cream shop on St. Paul Island and was caretaker of one of the island’s 
four communal camp houses; he built and maintained the camp house at Tasmania, 
along St. Paul’s extreme northwest shoreline. It is still, in 2008, the most remote cabin on 
the island. 

The Father Elary Stepetin Gromoff began his religious vocation of forty-five years 
as a reader for the Church of Saints Peter and Paul on St. Paul Island. In February 1970, 


92 






The Russian Orthodox Church 



Group of young women including second, fourth, and fifth from the left: Alexandra Orloff (daugh¬ 
ter of Rev. John Orloff), Justina Nozekoff, and Paula (Stepetin) McGlashan. (USUAFV6-45, Pribilof 
Islands Photographs, 1914, 1976-0063-00196, Archives, Alaska and Polar Regions Coll., Rasmuson 
Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.) 



Heretina Kochergin, Fredericka Martin, and Alexandra (Alice) Gromoff, circa 1942. (Fredericka 
Martin Photograph Coll., 91-223-244, Archives, Alaska and Polar Regions Coll., Rasmuson 
Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.) 


93 








Pribilof Islands: The People 



Elary Gromoff was ordained a priest by Alaska’s 
Bishop Thodosius (Lazor) and assigned to the 
Church of St. George the Victorious. 54 Father 
Gromoff was one of at least three members of 
the Pribilof Islands clergy to celebrate the Mass 
in Slavonic, Unangam Tunuu, and English. 55 


Alexandra (Alice) Gromoff, daughter of 
Rev. Elary Gromoff, St. Paul Island, date 
uncertain. (Fredericka Martin Photo Coll., 
91-223-308, Archives, Alaska and Polar 
Regions Coll., Rasmuson Library, University 
of Alaska Fairbanks.) 


His daughter Zenia (Zena) founded the 
fashionable Zena Jeans line of clothing, a com¬ 
pany that is still thriving today. His son Elary 
Jr., from a second marriage, was the first Alaska 
Native to enter West Point Military Academy 56 
and the first Native American to graduate from 
the Academy. One of Father Gromoff’s daugh¬ 
ters became a flight attendant on Pan American 
World Airways. His daughter, Alexandra 
(Alice), attended New York University and 
settled in Seattle after graduation. She married 
Augustine Tu and the couple resided near Lake 
City, Washington. 


A portrait of Elary Gromoff Sr., Gabe 
Stepetin, Mamant Emanoff, Peter Kochergin, and John Misikin hangs in the St. Paul 
Island City Council chambers. 57 


Pribilof Islands Clergy—St. Paul Island 

Resident Priests at St. Paul Island 58 

1848-1875: Reverend Father Innokenty Shaiashnikov (Shaiashnikoff) 59 
1875-1893: Reverend Father Paul Shaiashnikov 
1893-1901: Reverend Father Nikolai Rysev 
1901-1915: Reverend Father John Orloff (Orlov) 

1917-1924: Father Gregory Kochergin 
1924—1929: Archimandrite Gregory Prozorov 
1929-1936: Archimandrite John Zlobin 
1936-1960: Reverend Father Makary Baranov 60 

1961- 1962: Father Peter Bankerovich 

1962- 1964: Father Simeon Oskolkoff 
1964-1985: Reverend Father Michael Lestenkof 


94 







The Russian Orthodox Church 


1848-1875: Reverend Father Innokenty (Innokentii) 

Shaiashnikov (Shaiashnikoff, Shayashnikov) (1824-1883) 

Genealogy 

Innokenty Shaiashnikov was born on St. Paul Island in 1824. Innokenty was the son of 
Russian-American Company manager on St. Paul Island, Deacon Kass 'ian 61 Shaiashnikov 
and Nadezhda (surname unknown). 

[1] Kass’ian Shaiashnikov, d. January 2, 1859, Unalashka 62 
m.l. Nadezhda (July 8, 1827); d. date unknown 

[2] Innokenty, b. 1824, St. Paul Island, Russian America 

[3] Mariia, bp. (baptized) July 13, 1827, St. Paul Island, Russian America 

[4] Pavel, b. June 29, 1835, St. Paul Island, Russian America 

[5] Petr, b. 1839, St. Paul Island, Russian America 

[6] Kseniia, b. Jaunary 22, 1838, St. Paul Island, Russian America 

[7] Zakharii, b. February 5, 1841, St. Paul Island, Russian America 
m.2. Iustiniia Kochergin (August 4, 1850); d. March 6, 1863 

[8] Mariia, b.?; d. January 16, 1852 

[9] Kassian, b. Febraury 25, 1852 

[10] Evdokiia, b. Febraury 26, 1854 

[11] Petr, b. June 29, 1855; d. September 4, 1965 [1865?] 

[2] Innokenty, b. 1824; d. April 14, 1883 

m. Mariia Alekseev (August 23, 1848), Unalashka 
[2a] Elena, b. 1850 
[2b] Ioann, b. 1854 
[2c] Nadezhda, b. 1856 
[2d] Aleksandr, b. 1858 
[2e] Vasilii, b. 1860 
[2f] Mariia, b. 1864 
[2g] Ioann, b. 1865 
[2h] Petr b. ? 

[2i] Nikolai b. ? 

Biographical Sketch 

Innokenty trained for the Orthodox clergy at Atka under the Reverend Iakov Netsvetov, 
and became the first Alaska Native to become a priest. Bishop Innocent (Veniaminov) 
ordained Reverend Father Innokenty in 1848 at St. Michael. As dean of the Aleutian 
District, Father Innokenty served St. Paul Island and various Aleutian communities from 
his base in Unalaska. He is credited with translating numerous church texts into Aleut, 
including the Acts of the Apostles, which was initiated by Father Andrew Siztsov. 63 He 
is also remembered as a teacher with exceptional musical talent. In 1844, before his ap¬ 
pointment as dean, he accompanied Father Iakov to begin a mission at Yukon in Russian 
America (Ft. Yukon, Alaska). 64 


95 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


1875-1893: Reverend Father Paul Shaiashnikov (1835-1896) 



Father Paul Shaiashnikov in Saints Peter 
and Paul Church, St. Paul Island, 1892. 
(AMNH Special Collections, Chichester Coll., 
HDC231, neg. 46456.) 


Genealogy 

Father Paul (Pavel) Shaiashnikov [4] was the 
brother of Innokenty Shaiashnikov [2], 65 and 
was born June 29, 1835, to Deacon Kass'ian 
Shaiashnikov [1] and Nadezhda (surname un¬ 
known) of St. Paul Island. 

A St. Paul Island census taken on January 
1, 1873, offered the following vital data: 

Paval Shiesneekov, age 38 

Meesher [Mishu], his son age 13 

(June 1, 1873, father and son left for Ounalska 

on a visit) 66 


Biographical Sketch 

Father Paul’s father, Kass’ian Shaiashnikov, was a Creole who served as chief manager of 
the Pribilof Islands for the Russian-American Company 6 ' and is credited with using his 
own funds to build St. Paul Island’s first chapel in 1821. 68 In 1875, after completing studies 
at the Cathedral School in San Francisco, Father Paul became the first resident priest at 
St. Paul Island and arrived in time to see the completion of the island’s first church. 69 He 
succeeded his brother, Innokenty, who had served the island on periodic visits from his 
official post at Unalaska. Father Paul provided dedicated service to the people of the St. 
Paul Island Aleut community until 1893. 

The St. Paul Island Agent’s Log recorded the arrival of the Shaiashnikoff brothers 
aboard the Alexander. 


Father Innocent Shaiashnikoff Arch Priest of the Russian Greek Church on affairs of 
business connected with the church. Also, Father Paul Shaiashnikoff and son Mishu who 
went from here in 1872 to San Francisco to be ordained by the Bishop there and qualified 
for the pastorate of this island. 70 

In 1892, North American Commercial Company Agent Joseph Stanley-Brown re¬ 
ported his own personal conflicts with what he saw as the moral perspectives of the 
church and of Father Paul himself (topics such as finances, marriage or lack thereof, and 
education) as regards the Pribilof Islands Natives. 71 Stanley-Brown’s report may or may 
not have influenced Father Paul’s replacement the next year. 

The Rev. Paul Shaiashnikoff remained a resident of St. Paul Island after his replace¬ 
ment’s arrival in 1893. He died on the island on October 14, 1896. 

The church bell was tolled during his departure, a custom in the Greek Church when a 
Priest is dying. 72 

The natives made a coffin, and dug the grave under the eaves of the church for Father Paul 
Shaiashnikoff. They took the body to the church at 5 o’clock this evening. They will watch 
with him in the church during the night, and bury him in the morning. 73 


96 





















The Russian Orthodox Church 


1893-1901: Reverend Father Nikolai Rysev (1829-1911) 

Genealogy 

Nikolai Rysev was born in 1829 at Sitka, Alaska. He was the son of Russian-born Stefan 
Rysev and Natalia Maliutin, an Aleut. Father Rysev married Marina Tapkin of Sitka in 
1851, and the couple had ten children. Father Rysev died at age eighty-two on August 19, 
1911. He is buried at Holy Ascension Cathedral Cemetery at Unalaska, as are his wife and 
son Ivan Rysev. 74 


Biographical Sketch 

Nikolai Rysev worked for the Russian-American Company at Sitka and subsequently 
served Russia in the Crimean War. In 1873, at the age of forty-four, he entered the clergy 
and initially served as a reader at Kodiak. Eight years later he was ordained a priest. In 
1893, he relocated to St. Paul Island as the community’s second resident priest; he served 
until 1901. 5 The Paul Island Agent’s Log noted: “Rev. Resoff and family, parish priest ar¬ 
rives, August 21, 1893.” 76 

On September 18, 1897, Joseph Murray recorded in the Agent’s Log: 


They have some 17 Holydays of Obligation during the year, which they like to observe as 
they do the Sabbath; and I have promised to allow them to do so except in cases when 
vessels are to be discharged or laden to which they have agreed. The following named days 
are those which are to be kept holy: 


Jan. 6th 
Jan. 13th 
Jan 18th 
Feb.14th 
April 6th 
May 20th 
May 21st 
July 11th 
August 18th 
August 27th 
Sept 10th 
Sept 20th 
Sept 26th 
Oct 13th 
Nov 20th 
Dec 3rd 
Dec 18th 
Palm Sunday: 


Christmas 

New Year (Russian Calendar) 

Baptism of Christ 

Candlemass Day 

Annunciation Day 

St. John the Theologian’s Day 

St. Nicholas Day 

St. Paul’s Day 

Transfiguration of Our Lord 
Assumption of the Holy Virgin 
Beheading of St. John the Baptist 
Birth of the Holy Virgin 
Exaltation of the Cross 

The feast of the Intercession of the Holy Virgin 
St. Michael’s Day 

Presentation of Virgin Mary to the Church 
St. Nicholas the Thaumaturgist 

Easter: Mid Pentecost: Ascension Day: Trinity Sunday. 77 


The observance of these holy days may appear silly to some "Modern Thinkers;” but it 
should be borne in mind that our Native people are still very far behind our modern 
notions of doubt and disbelief and that “Religion to them is a reality not to be doubted, or 
called in question, under any circumstances. But off from the world of modern thought, as 
they are, their only comfort in life is their firm belief in a personal God: a literal heaven and 
hell; death, and resurrection to eternal bliss—and I feel it to be best to enable them to take 
all the comfort they can out of such belief and such surroundings, and consequently I have 
promised to give them the holidays named. 




97 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


Reverend Father Nikolai started a Russian Church School on St. Paul Island in 1898. 

The following letter from Rev. Rysev was transcribed by the Treasury Agent-in-Charge, 

Joseph Murray, into his log: 

St. Paul Island, Alaska 
May 9th, 1898 
Mr. Joseph Murray 
U.S. Treasury Agent 

Dear Sir: In accordance with your request that I explain my position on the question of the 
proposed Russian School on St. Paul Island, I will say that my ecclesiastical superior, Rev. 

Alexander Kedroosky of Unalaska district, has instructed me to open a Russian School, to 
be opened daily, from the closing of the Public School in May to its opening in September. I 
herewith enclose a list of the daily lessons to be taught in the Russian School. 

Very Respectfully, 

N.S. Rysev 

Priest of S. Paul Island Russ. Church 

Reverend Father Nikolai included his list of proposed daily exercises. Reverend 
Nikolai mentioned about five months of church schooling, whereas Agent Murray or his 
assistant penned “for eight months.” 78 

On May 15, 1898, Agent Murray replied to Reverend Nikolai’s request: 

Rev. Nicoli S. Reesef. 

Dear Sir: In reply to your favor of the 9th inst. in which you inform me that your 
“Ecclesiastical Superior” at Unalaska has instructed you to open a Russian School on St. 

Paul Island “from the closing of the Public School in May to its opening in September;” I 
have to say that no school can be opened, or held, for any purpose during the period set 
apart by the United States Government for vacation for the children, after their attendance 
at the Public School during the presiding eight months. 

You will remember that he [Eminence Nicholis, Bishop of Alaska] asked, as a favor, that 
the priest be allowed to teach the gospel in the Public School building , on Saturdays and 
Sundays; and that both the Treasury Agent and the Superintendent of the Company agreed 
to have it so; but then you tell us you have been instructed to open a “Russian” School, 
six days per week for eight months of the year [the log book has an entry in the margin 
indicating "eight” should read "four” months]; and you [word illegible] use a list of daily 
exercises for thirty hours per week, out of which four hours only are to be given to the 
study of the English language. 

The Bishop complained of nothing except the want of time in which to impart religious 
instruction to the children; and he asked that two days—Saturday and Sunday—be given up 
for that purpose and it was done. 

The latest instructions received from the government is that: “None but English language 
shall be taught in the Schools.” Yet in spite of the regulation, Rev. Kodrovsky orders you to 
open a “Russian” School for eight months and to confine the children there every day of the 
week; thus making it impossible for them to have a single day’s exercise during the year! 

There is no desire on the part of the United States or its Agents to meddle with the 
doctrines or dogmas of any Church, or, in any manner, to abridge the rights of the people in 
their mode of worship, but on the other hand, no Church can be allowed to interfere with 
the laws of Congress or with the regulations of the Department governing the Seal Islands. 

Personally, I respectfully suggest that your Church Ritual, Catechism, and books of 
religious instruction generally prepared for School Children, be printed in English and 
introduced into the Public Schools on both the Seal Islands; thus doing away with the last 
and only serious cause of consternation between the priests and the Treasury Agents. 79 


98 








The Russian Orthodox Church 



Nikolai Rysev in Saints Peter and Paul Church, St. Paul Island, 1893. (AMNH Special 
Collections, Chichester Coll., HDC229, neg. 101074.) 


1901-1915: Reverend Father John E. Orloff (Orlof/Orlov) (1859-1928) 

Genealogy 

According to the St. Paul Island census re¬ 
cords for 1914, John E. Orloff was born 
November 26, 1859 at Sitka, Russian 
America. He and his wife, Nadesda (sur¬ 
name and dates unknown) had four chil¬ 
dren: Olga, Nadia, Nicoli, and Alexandra. 

Nadesda Orloff died in 1901 at Sitka. 80 


Biographical Sketch 

John Orloff attended the Cathedral School 
in San Francisco, where in 1879 he was 
appointed song leader for the Kvikhpak 
(Yukon) Mission. After serving for a dozen 
years in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region, he 
was ordained a priest in 1891. In 1901, after 
the death of his wife, Reverend Father John relocated to St. Paul Island with his four chil¬ 
dren. He was one of at least three members of the clergy to celebrate Mass in the Pribilofs 
in Slavonic, Unangam Tunuu, and English. 81 He oversaw construction of the community’s 
fourth place of worship, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2007. 

I 


Reverend Father John Orloff, Church of Saints 
Peter and Paul, St. Paul Island, circa 1907. 
(NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, RG 
22, U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, 1907-1921.) 



99 


















































Pribilof Islands: The People 



Reverend Father John Orloff and family (children left to right: Olga, Alexandra, 
Nadia, and Nicoli), St. Paul Island, July 12, 1905. (NOAA, NMML Library, VBS- 
2858.fi 2 



Inside Saints Peter and Paul Church, St. Paul Island: Deacon Father George 
Kochutin (left, Aleut who later became a priest) and Father John Orloff (right). 
(NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, RG 22, U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, 1907- 
1921.) 


100 





























The Russian Orthodox Church 



Reverend Father John Orloff (left foreground) following the wedding of his daughter Olga to 
Nicolai Kozloff (Kozlov), 1912. Olga Kozloff was the mother of Mary KozloffBourdukofsky. 
Olga’s sister Alexandra Orloff Bourdukofsky is wearing a white hat and standing to the left of 
the bride. Mrs. Grace Lembkey stands second from the right. (Alaska State Library, Michael 
Z. Vinokouroff Photograph Coll., P243-1-089.) 



Reverend Father John Orloff (left side of steps) and wedding party following a cer¬ 
emony at Saints Peter and Paul Church, St. Paul Island, circa early 1900s. (Univ 
of Washington Libraries, Special Collections Division. Photo: N. B. Miller. PFl 
Coll. S9S.8.) 


101 




























Pribilof Islands: The People 


1917-1924: Father Gregory Kochergin (1877-1945) 


Genealogy 

Gregory Kochergin was born at St. Paul Island in 1877. He died in 1945. 

Biographical Sketch 

Gregory Kochergin was raised on St. Paul Island and studied for three years in his later 
youth at the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in San Francisco, California. He returned to St. 
Paul Island, worked as a church reader and teacher, and was ordained by Bishop Phillip 
in 1917. He served as the priest for St. Paul Island during 1917-24, and thereafter served 
several other parishes in Alaska. 83 

The St. Paul Island Agent’s Log recorded the arrival of “Gregory Kochergin who was 
ordained a priest of the Russian Church at Unalaska in August, returned and was warmly 
welcomed by the natives.” 84 



■ —___ v ; 45* ■- v - 1 

^ ^ 3 C < o. 1 

Reverend Gregory Kochergin, Saints Peter and Paul Church, St. Paul Island, 1920s. (Courtesy Deacon 
Father Andronik Kashevarof, DAI<29.) 85 


102 


















The Russian Orthodox Church 


1924-1929: Archimandrite Gregory Prozorov (1867-1935) 


Genealogy 

Gregory Prozorov 86 was born in the province of 
Yaroslavl, Russia, in 1867, and died in 1935. 


Biographical Sketch 

Father Gregory was ordained in 1891. Before 
moving to St. Paul Island in 1924, he served sever¬ 
al churches on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. He 
was a widower and apparently without children. 
He was elevated to the rank of Archimandrite 
in 1926. After leaving St. Paul Island in 1929, he 
served several parishes in California and Canada. 


Father Gregory Prozorov on St. Paul 
Island, 1920s. (Courtesy Deacon 
Father Andronik Kashevarof, DAK28.) 



1929-1936: Archimandrite John Zlobin (1880-1959) 

Genealogy 

John Zlobin was born in the Russian province of Saratov in 1880. He died in 1959. 87 
Biographical Sketch 

John Zlobin began his religious vocation as a missionary to Canada in 1910. In Canada, 
he became a tonsured monk, and an ordained priest the following year. He went on to 
serve several parishes in Canada and the United States. By 1929, when he arrived at St. 
Paul Island, Father Zlobin had been elevated to the rank of Archimandrite. After leaving 
St. Paul in 1936, he moved to Sitka, where he served the church as an administrator for 
the parishes of Alaska. Archimandrite Zlobin was consecrated Bishop of Alaska in 1946. 
He remained in that position until his 1954 retirement. 

1936-1960: Reverend Father Makary Baranov (1883-1969) 

Genealogy 

Makary Baranov 88 was born in 1883 and died in 1969. Makary Baranov married Zinaida 
(surname unknown, marriage date unknown). 


103 











Pribilof Islands: The People 


Biographical Sketch 

Before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Makary Baranov had a military career in Russia. 
He entered the priesthood in 1935, and from 1936 until his retirement in 1960, he served 
the St. Paul Island community. 



Reverend Father 
Makary Baranov 
inside Saints Peter 
and Paul Church, St. 
Paul Island. (NARA, 
Pacific Alaska Region, 
Anchorage, RG 370-95- 
ADMC2166.) 


Deacon Father 
Nikifer Mandregan, 
Saints Peter and 
Paul Church, circa 
1950s. (NARA, 
Pacific Alaska 
Region, Anchorage, 


RG 370-95-ADMC 
2167.) 



104 
























The Russian Orthodox Church 



Reverend Father Makary Baranov perform¬ 
ing wedding ceremony, Saints Peter and 
Paul Church, circa 1945-1950. (Anchorage 
Museum at Rasmuson Center, Clarence, and 
Marjorie Olson Photograph Coll., B90.8.90.) 



Father Makary Baranov and three girls, St. Paul 
Island. (NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, 
RG 370-95-ADMC-242.) 



Reverend Father Makary Baranov performing wedding ceremony, Saints 
Peter and Paul Church. (NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, RG 
370-95-ADMC-863.) 


105 











































Pribilof Islands: The People 




Matushka (honorific for the wife of a priest) Baranov sewing inside the Priest’s House, St. Paul Island. 
(NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, RG 370-95-ADMC 2204.) 


Matushka (Zinaida) Baranov in the church’s greenhouse, St. Paul Island. (NARA, College Park, MD, 
022-RB-l 952-21.) 


106 











The Russian Orthodox Church 

1961- 1962: Father Peter Bankerovich 

No additional information was readily available for Father Peter Bankerovich. 

1962- 1964: Father Simeon Oskolkoff (b. 1930) 

Genealogy 

Simeon Oskolkoff 89 was born in Anchorage, Alaska, in 1930. 

Biographical Sketch 

Simeon Oskolkoff was born in Anchorage and spent his childhood years in Ninilchik, 
Alaska. He took his priestly vows in 1952 before Bishop Amvrossy. Father Simeon served 
the St. Paul Island community from 1962 to 1964. He continued to serve many communi¬ 
ties throughout Alaska until his retirement in 2003. 

1964-1985: Reverend Father Michael D. Lestenkof (1913-2003) 

Genealogy 

Michael Dimitrovich Lestenkof was born at St. George Island on October 13, 1913, the 
son of Dimitri Innokentovich Lestenkov (b. May 27, 1862, at Atka; d. May 2, 1928, St. 
George Island) and Alexandra Feofilaktovna Tetov (b. May 5,1879, St. Paul Island; d. June 
2, 1939, St. George Island). Michael was the seventh of the couple’s nine children. 

Michael D. Lestenkof married Stefanida Lekanof in the Church of St. George the 
Victorious, St. George Island. Stefanida was born in 1919 on St. George Island to Serge 
Lekanof and Sophia Merculief Lekanof (b. September 29, 1901, St. George Island, to 
George Merculief and Stepanida Malavansky 90 Merculief). Michael and Stefanida had 
nine children: 

[2i] Michael D. Lestenkof, b. October 13, 1913; d. July 11, 2003 

m. Stefanida Lekanof (September 18, 1938); b. November 16, 1919; d. June 14, 2000 

[2i—1] Nicholas Lestenkof, b. December 20, 1938 

[2i—2] June Lestenkof, b. November 15, 1941; d. July 24, 2009 

[2i—3] Michael Lestenkof, b. June 7, 1945 

[2i—4] Timon Lestenkof, b. January 4, 1947; d. February 11, 1999 

[2i—5] Maxim Lestenkof, b. January 30, 1949 

[2i—6] Phillip Lestenkof, b. November 26, 1954 

[2i—7] Agafon Lestenkof, b. March 5, 1956; d. April 7, 1969 

[2i—8] Aquilina Debbie Lestenkof, b. June 26, 1960 

[2i—9] Stephanie Doreen Lestenkof Mandregan, b. November 13, 1965 

Stefanida Lestenkof died on June 14, 2000, in Anchorage. Michael and Stefanida 
Lestenkof are interred in the St. Paul Island cemetery on the slope of Black Bluffs. 


107 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


Biographical Sketch 

Michael Dimitrovich Lestenkof, the seventh 
child of Dimitri Lestenkov (Atka) and Alexandra 
Tetov (St. Paul Island), was born on October 13, 
1913, and claimed the number 13 as his lucky 
number. His father, Dimitri, was the eldest son of 
the Reverend Father Innokenty Lestenkov, who 
served St. George Island in the late nineteenth 
century. An employee of the Alaska Commercial 
Company at Unalaska, Dimitri moved to St. 
George in 1884 at the request of his father and 
was ordained a church reader. 91 

Reverend Father Michael was of the first 
generation of Lestenkofs born on the Pribilof 
Islands. Not knowing whether he was born at 
the thirteenth hour, he sometimes threw it in 
for the story. He would also say it was a Friday, 
but this was just in jest. It is no wonder, says his 
family, that he would be done visiting this land 
( tanaadaqadalix ) on the eleventh day at the eleventh hour: 11:00 a.m., July 11, 2003. Or 
was this so he would be buried on the thirteenth day of July? (Church tradition requires 
that the deceased be buried on the third day, or July 13 in Father Michael’s case.) One of 
his favorite sayings was from the funeral liturgy, “The Earth is the Lord’s; the round world, 
its fullness and all that dwell therein.” His flock found significant lessons in the way Rev. 
Father Michael marked time’s passages, whether humorous, humbling, or profound. His 
childhood nickname “ Lakuchax ” translates as little boy, but Michael and Stefanida grew 
up to become “Father” and “Matushka” of the Pribilof Islands’ Orthodox Church. Father 
Michael favored sayings such as, “What you are is God’s gift to you; What you make of 
yourself is your gift to God” and “God is Time and Time is God.” 



Dimitri Lestenkof, St. George Island, 
December 1922. (Photo: Edward C. 
Johnston, neg. 1981. NOAA, NMML 
Library, Seattle, WA.) 


About five years after he was born on St. George Island, Lakuchax had a vision. 
Awakened from sleep, he saw an iconostasis (partition or screen, decorated with icons, 
separating the sanctuary from the rest of the church) in the bedroom. Glancing around at 
his still sleeping brothers, he got out of bed, walked up to the apparition and touched it. 
A bit frightened by the fact that he could feel it, he jumped back in bed. Peering out from 
behind a blanket, Lakuchax could still see the iconostasis there in his bedroom. 

Many years later, Michael came to believe that this vision was intended to let him 
know what to make of himself. According to “These Truths We Hold: The Holy Orthodox 
Church, Her Life and Teachings,” (Compiled and Edited by A Monk of St. Tikhon’s 
Monastery, South Canaan, PA: St. Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 1986) the iconostasis ex¬ 
presses the boundary between two worlds, the Divine and the human, the permanent 
and the transitory. It divides the two worlds but also unites them into one whole—a place 
where all separation is overcome and where reconciliation between God and man is 


108 








The Russian Orthodox Church 


achieved. Lakuchax began his service in 1963 as 
an Orthodox priest on St. George Island like his 
grandfather Innokenti, the first Lestenkov to live 
on St. George. In 1964, Reverend Father Michael 
transferred to St. Paul Island. 92 

Guided by an awareness that time is not to 
be contended with, Reverend Father Michael 
lived, accepted, and trusted it as part of a greater 
plan. With patience, love, and humor, he helped 
bring God to a people who needed to get through 
an era of difficulty and change. He retired from 
serving the Pribilof Islands in 1985 and moved to 
Seattle, but returned to St. Paul in 1997. 

For forty years of faithful service to the 
Russian Orthodox Church, Reverend Father 
Michael was awarded the Jeweled Cross. Bishop 
Nikolai, Diocese of Alaska, made arrangements 
to present the award to Reverend Father Michael 
during the celebration of St. Peter and St. Paul’s 
Day on July 12, 2003. The Bishop was to arrive at 
St. Paul on July 11, but his flight was canceled be¬ 
cause of mechanical problems. Reverend Father Michael and Stefanida Lestenkof 

(Courtesy Father Paul Merculief.) 

Michael died that day. He might have said to his 

people, some of whom also now rest on St. Paul Island, that he had already received his 
award. It was the gift of Memory Eternal. 

When he was six years old, Lakuchax lost the middle finger of his left hand while play¬ 
ing with a conveyor belt system that was used to haul rock up from the St. Paul Island 
shore to a crusher. Reverend Father Michael often told the story of his sister Elizabeth 
carrying him to the homes of people who would feel sorry for him and give him candy, 
which he then had to share with his sister. 

In 1929, at the age of 16, he was sent to work for a time on St. Paul Island. He recalled 
staying at Northeast Point during the commercial seal harvest. He told of a time when 
the sealers hauled bundles of fur-seal pelts on their backs from the killing grounds near 
Webster’s house on the eastern end of the island to the western side of Big Lake. At Big 
Lake, a new railcar system was to haul them back into the village. However, the railcar did 
not work, so the men had to haul the skins all the way back to the Webster House area 
where there was a salt house. From that location, they would haul the sealskins by sea in 
nigalan [open skin boats] back into the village. 

In 1959, Michael Lestenkof received his 30-year pin for service to the U.S. govern¬ 
ment. 



109 












Pribilof Islands: The People 



Constantine Lestenkof, St. George Island, 
December 1922. (Photo: Edward C. Johnston, 
neg. 1962. NOAA, NMML Library, Seattle, WA.) 



Elizabeth Lestenkof, St. George Island, December 
1922. (Photo: Edward C. Johnston, neg. 1961. 
NOAA, NMML Library, Seattle, WA.) 


A self-motivated and independent man, Michael Lestenkof also started his own busi¬ 
ness on the islands, first on St. George and then on St. Paul. Just how this business first 
came about is uncertain, but Chinese men worked as cooks on the islands at various 
times, and the male fur-seal penis bone (baculum) or “stick” had become a sought-after 
aphrodisiac in China. The general scheme operated as follows: an island Native agent 
with access to the killed seals would hire young boys to collect the sticks. Only boys seen 
as honest were chosen, as not all were considered completely honest. The Native agent 
(in this case, Michael Lestenkof) would take the boys to breakfast at the island mess just 
after the sealers left for the killing field. 93 After breakfast the agent transported the boys 
to the killing field where they waited until the sealers drove the seals to the field and killed 
and skinned them. The boys would then cut the “sticks” from the male carcasses and store 
them in a bag. At the conclusion of the daily harvest, the agent would drive the boys back 
to the village where they counted and deposited their sticks through a hole in a bin, one 
hole for each boy. The agent then collected the sticks and tacked them or hung them over 
a line to dry. He then arranged to sell the dried sticks to a broker, usually in San Francisco 
or Seattle. The broker paid the agent and the agent paid the boys. Prices paid to the boys 
varied with demand and quality but normally ranged between ten and twenty-five cents. 

About 1960, Michael and his wife, Stefanida, were asked by the community of St. 
George if he was ready to become a priest. The first time, he said “yes” and she said “no,” 
so he was not ordained. They were asked a second time, and this time both answered, 
“Yes.” They said they had talked about it in great depth, about how their lives and their 


110 








The Russian Orthodox Church 



Left to right: (standing) Eddie Kozloff, Terenty Philemonoffjr., Jason Bourdukofsky, Gregory Fratis, 
Sophie Stepetin, Andrey Mandregan, Secretary of Commerce Maurice H. Stans, Pribilof Program 
Director Bill Peck, Lavrenty Stepitin, NMFS Director Philip Roedel, Father Michael Lestenkof, Ignaty 
Hapoff, NMFS Alaska Regional Director Harry Rietze, Gabriel Stepetin, Tikhon Stepetin; NOAA 
Deputy Director Howard Pollock (kneeling), St. Paul Island, July 1971. (NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, 
Anchorage. Photo: Jim Branson. RG 370-95-ADMC-1111.) 


friendships would change. They claimed they never regretted the decision. Michael was 
ordained in 1963 in the Sitka Cathedral. Stefanida was the force behind him, he said; 
everything about his “presentation” to his flock was of her doing. She loved to cook and 
bake and she was good at it. They had a brand new brick home, but when they became 
Father and Matushka, they had to vacate the house and move into the priest’s house. 
Matushka was not too happy about leaving a brand new home for an old one. 

In later life Reverend Father Michael would say, “I was a rugged working man.” He 
helped to build the first plank roads on St. George Island. His first carpentry effort was 
for what is presently [2006] the fire house at St. George. It was his family’s first home. He 
built steps to a second story that a visitor said must have been “built for cows,” because 
they were huge and made of such thick wood. (The visitor was probably Christopher 
Malavansky.) After that Father Michael probably remodeled every home he lived in. 

When they were transferred to St. Paul Island in August of 1964 they found the priest’s 
house a dark, dingy place that “only a monk would live in,” Matushka said. Remodeling 
took place “to make it a home.” 


ill 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


“When I came to the community of St. Paul, I spent the first year getting to know it; 
getting to know how people did things, Reverend Father Michael said. He served for 21 
years, until September of 1985. Reverend Father Michael was one of the few bilingual 
(English and Aleut) teachers 94 at St. Paul School, where he taught for about five years, 
from 1974 until 1979. He also worked as a hardware clerk to earn enough hours for a 
retirement pension from the federal government. 

On June 13, 1985, Reverend Father Lestenkof testified during hearings before 
the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to amend the Interim Convention on 
Conservation of North Pacific Fur Seals Between the United States, Canada, Japan, and 
the Soviet Union (99th Congress, Senate Hearing 99-218, Treaty Doc. 99-5). 95 


Assembly of God Church 

Purportedly, an Alaska Assembly of 
God Mission Church was the only other 
Christian church to root itself at the Pribilof 
Islands. Government Island Manager H. 
Euneau wrote in his 1965 Sealing Report on 
December 22, “a minister from a Protestant 
church did visit St. Paul Island during this 
year. No development has resulted from 
this visit as yet.” The next year a church 
building, relatively small in dimensions, 
stood near the corner of Bartlett Boulevard 
and Airport Road. A parsonage was also 
built. Several members of the St. Paul com¬ 
munity attended the new church, wheth¬ 
er out of curiosity or a real desire to find a satisfactory alternative is not known. The 
Unaagin community never embraced the alternative faith, but the Assembly of God did 
provide a place of worship for visitors, transients, and some Coast Guardsmen on St. Paul 
Island. In the late 1990s, Minister Alvin Capener died on St. Paul Island. His wife, Lillian 
Capener, maintained a bed and breakfast in the parsonage until her death circa 2007. 
The Assembly of God ministry continued to serve Coast Guardsmen and transients into 
2009. The church building went into disrepair following the passing of Rev. Capener. In 
2008, the church roof collapsed, but a visiting minister continued to provide services in 
the parsonage. 



Assembly of God Church (left) and parsonage 
(far right), St. Paul Island, March 2001. (Photo: 
John Lindsay, NOAA). 


112 












The Russian Orthodox Church 



Sketch of the U.S. Treasury Building (Government House) and Saints Peter and Paul Church, St. Paul 
Island, circa 1872 (10 x 12 inches). (NARA, College Park, MD, RG 121.) 


1 Over the years, the literature described the Russian Orthodox faith variously: Greek Christian 
(David Hunter Miller, The Alaska Treaty, Kingston, ON: Limestone Press, 1981, 209); Greek 
Catholic (Elliott, Report on the Prybilov Group or Seal Islands, Alaska, Washington, DC: GPO, 1873, 
unpaginated); Greco-Roman, and Russian-Greco. 

2 Suggested readings for additional information on the evolution of Orthodoxy in Alaska and the 
Pribilof Islands include: Ivan Veniaminov, Notes on the Islands of the Unalashka District, ed. 

Richard A. Pierce, trans. Lydia T. Black and Richard H. Geoghegan (Kingston, ON: Limestone 
Press, 1984); Gregory Afonsky, A History of the Orthodox Church in Alaska, 1794-1917 (Kodiak, 
AK: St. Herman’s Theological Seminary Press, 1977); and Michael Oleksa, Orthodox Alaska: A 
Theology of Mission (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998). Russian Navy Captain 
Pavel Golovin, sent by Imperial Russia to inspect conditions within the Russian-American Company 
colony in 1861, offered his opinion about Aleuts and their faith: “It is true that the Aleuts accepted 
Christianity and tried to go to church and diligently attempted to fulfill their religious obliga¬ 
tions, but they scarcely have a genuine conception of the benefits of the Christian religion. Persons 
who have a good understanding of the Aleuts feel that they would become ardent Mohammedans 
tomorrow, if the government ordered them to do so. The deeds of the first Russian promyshlen- 
niki forced the Aleuts into total submission, and not one of them thinks of disobeying any Russian.” 
Basil Dmytryshyn and E. A. P. Crownhart-Vaughan, eds., The End of Russian America: Captain P. 

N. Golovin’s Last Report, 1862 (Portland: Oregon Historical Society, 1979), 21. Golovin’s opinion is 


113 


































Puibilof Islands: The People 


controversial. 

3 Barbara Sweetland Smith and Patricia J. Petrivelli, A Sure Foundation: Aleut Churches in World 
War II (Anchorage, AI<: Aleutian/Pribilof Islands Assoc., 1994, 53), stated that the 1833 chapel was 
made of driftwood, whereas Veniaminov, Notes on the Islands, 238, wrote that it was made of wood, 
suggesting that possibly rough-sawn wood was brought to the island by the Russian-American 
Company for that purpose. 

4 Veniaminov, Notes on the Islands, 238; and Smith and Petrivelli, A Sure Foundation, 53. Smith and 
Petrivelli’s booklet provides an excellent summary of the history of Russian Orthodox churches and 
the people who constructed, supported, and maintained them in the Aleutians and the Pribilofs. 

5 Smith and Petrivelli, A Sure Foundation, 53-4; and Barbara Sweetland Smith, The Church of the Holy 
Great Martyr Saint George the Victorious on St. George Island, Pribilof Islands: A History, 1833- 
1998 (Anchorage: Aleutian/Pribilof Islands Restitution Trust), 10. 

6 This information came from a loose page in Agent John W. Lipke’s Official Journal, St. George 
Island, Alaska (NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage RG 22), 1935. The header of this single 
page reads, “St. George Island, Alaska, Mar. 31, 1935.” 

7 Smith and Petrivelli, A Sure Foundation, 55. Bishop Alexii departed St. George for St. Paul Island on 
May 13, 1936 (Official Journal St. George Island, Alaska, 1936). 

8 This information came from a loose page within Agent John W. Lipke’s Official Journal, St. George 
Island, Alaska, 1935. The header of this single page reads, “St. George Island, Alaska, Mar. 31, 1935.” 

9 Agent McMillin, “Agent & Caretakers Annual Report for St. George Island,” Mar. 31, 1936, 13. The 
reader will note that Agent McMillin stated church materials and supplies were paid for “exclusive of 
their canteen funds.” Smith and Petrivelli, A Sure Foundation, 55, stated that funds for the church’s 
construction were, in part, “raised through the community Canteen.” Smith and Petrivelli (55) also 
noted that Bishop Alexii (Panteleev) consecrated the church on May 10, 1936, and stayed on for an¬ 
other two years to serve the community; Smith, The Church of the Holy Great Martyr, 13, stated that 
Bishop Alexii remained at St. George for only seven months, 32; whereas the agent’s Official Journal 
for St. George Island, Alaska, 1936, stated that Bishop Alexii departed St. George for St. Paul Island 
on May 13, 1936. 

10 Smith and Petrivelli, A Sure Foundation, 57. 

11 Barbara Sweetland Smith, The Church of the Holy Apostles Saints Peter and Paul on Saint Paul 
Island, Pribilof Islands: A History, 1821-2001 (Anchorage: Aleutian/Pribilof Islands Restitution 
Trust, 2007), 19. 

12 Ibid., 26. 

13 Veniaminov, 238, states that the chapel was dedicated to St. Peter the Apostle; and Smith, The 
Church of the Holy Apostles, 5, suggested that the chapel was dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul. 

14 Smith, The Church of the Holy Apostles, 6. A photograph of the 1840 structure is included in the 
Smith booklet. 

15 Vincent Colyer, Report of the Hon. Vincent Colyer, United States Special Indian Commissioner, on the 
Indian Tribes and their Surroundings in Alaska Territory, from Personal Observation and Inspection 
in 1869. Bancroft Library file 19633B, University of California, Berkeley. 

16 U.S. Congress, House, “Letter from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting, in response to reso¬ 
lution of the House of Representatives, Information Relating to the Seal-Fisheries in Alaska,” in Seal 
Fisheries in Alaska, 44th Cong., 1st sess., H. Ex. Doc. no. 83, Washington, DC: GPO, 1876, 99. 

17 Ibid., 105. 

18 Smith, The Church of the Holy Apostles, 6. 

19 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1876, 428. We did not find any information as to the meaning of “the 
widows Support Stories,” although these words are clearly written in the log; they are suggestive that 
it was a fabrication in favor of the Alaska Commercial Company. 

20 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1877, 22; and Smith, The Church of the Holy Apostles, 9, reported that 
the bells cost $2,750 and were cast by William Blake & Co., Boston, MA, in 1875. 

21 Smith, The Church of the Holy Apostles, 12. 

22 Barbara Boyle Torrey, Slaves of the Harvest: The Story of the Pribilof Aleuts (St. Paul Island: 
Tanadgusix, 1978), 149, citing Alaska Magazine, Letters to the Editor, July 1975. 

23 U.S. Congress, House, Letter from the Secretary of the Treasury, 83. 

24 Smith and Petrivelli, A Sure Foundation, 54, is the source of the chrononology of the serving clergy 
on St. George Island. Note: Orthodoxy requires a specific etiquette when addressing members 


114 




The Russian Orthodox Church 


of its clergy. Deacons hold rank in the Priesthood, and are not laymen. Deacons are addressed as 
“Father” or “Deacon Father.” Priests are also addressd informally as “Father.” In a formal address, 
married Orthodox Priests are addressed as “The Reverend Father.” The wife of a Priest “in a sense 
shares her husband’s priesthood.” The Russian title “Matushka (Ma-toosh-ka) is applied in Western 
societies to the Priest’s wife. When greeted personally, Bishops are addressed as “Your Grace.” “Your 
Eminence” is the proper title for Bishops with suffragans or assistant Bishops, Metropolitans, and 
most Archbishops. Otherwise, Bishops are addressed as “The Right Reverend Bishop,” followed by 
their first name. Archbishops, Metropolitans, and Patriarchs are addressed as “The Most Reverend 
Archbishop” (“Metropolitan,” or “Patriarch”). An Archimandrite (the highest monastic rank below 
that of Bishop), “The Very Reverend Archimandrite” (or, in the Slavic jurisdictions, "The Right 
Reverend Archimandrite”), http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/praxis/clergy_etiquette.aspx (accessed 
May 02, 2009) 

25 “His whole life devoted to church work.” St. George Island Agent’s Log, 1895, 462. 

26 St. George Island Census Schedule for 1897, vol. 2, 287, gave Alexandra’s age as 18. 

27 Aquilina Lestenkof provided the full name of her ancestor in an email to John Lindsay, Mar. 3, 2008. 

28 Smith and Petrivelli, A Sure Foundation, 56. 

29 St. George Island Agent’s Log, June 28, 1893, 289. 

30 Smith, The Church of the Holy Great Martyr, 29. 

31 Ibid., Smith, 30. 

32 Smith and Petrivelli, A Sure Foundation, 56; and Smith, The Church of the Holy Great Martyr, 30. 

33 Smith, The Church of the Holy Great Martyr, 31. 

34 Ibid., 32. 

35 Official Journal, St. George Island, Alaska, 1936. 

36 Smith, The Church of the Holy Great Martyr, 32. 

37 Lather Theodosy’s surname was found in a 1945 document presumably written by Carl Hoverson, 
acting agent and caretaker for St. George Island. The 13-page document summarizes the arrivals and 
departures of numerous vessels and individuals at St. George during 1944 and up to Mar. 2, 1945. It 
also summarized work by and pay to “Temporary Workmen” and “Permanent Improvements” made 
on the island. Lur-Seal Archives, NMML Library, Seattle, WA. 

38 Official Journal, St. George Island, Alaska, 1937, Sept. 3. 

39 Agent’s Annual Report, St. George Island, Apr. 27, 1941. The quote was found in the unpaginated 
document under the heading of “Observations.” 

40 Smith, The Church of the Holy Great Martyr, 33. 

41 Ibid., 34, states that Father Michael served St. George until 1965. Father Michael’s daughter, Aquilina 
Lestenkof, has said that he transferred to St. Paul Island during Aug. 1964; and cf. H. Euneau, “1965 
Sealing Report,” unpaginated, Dec. 22, 1965, under the subheading “Religion.” 

42 Betty A. Lindsay and John A. Lindsay, Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Genealogy and Census, NOAA Tech. 
Memo. NOS ORR 18 (2009), 338. 

43 Smith, The Church of the Holy Great Martyr, 35. 

44 The 1890 St. Paul Island Census listed Ouleanna Stepetin’s age as three, placing her birth year circa 
1887. The 1894 St. Paul Island Census listed Ouleanna Stepetin’s age as four, placing her birth year 
circa 1890. Lindsay and Lindsay, Genealogy and Census, 207 and 259. 

45 Lindsay and Lindsay, Genealogy and Census, 82, 88. 

46 Ibid., 482. 

47 Ibid., 53. 

48 Ibid., 590, 610, and 620. 

49 The spelling “Ishmael” is used by the Russian Orthodox Church, and is listed in Dean Kohlhoff, 

When the Wind was a River (Seattle: Univ. Washington Press), 230. The spelling “Ishmal” was de¬ 
rived from Marti Murray, Memory Eternal I: Baseline Inventory of the Burials Surrounding the Holy 
Ascension Cathedral at Unalaska, Alaska. (Anchorage: Aleutian-Pribilof Islands Trust, 1997), 318; 
whereas the spellings “Ismael” and “Ismail” were derived from Barbara S. Smith, TJie Church of the 
Holy Apostles. 

50 Murray, Memory Eternal I, 317-8. 

51 Lindsay and Lindsay, Genealogy and Census, 276. 

52 Anna Stepetin’s birth year is suspect as it appears as both 1871 and as 1879 in numerous St. Paul 
Island census records. The date “February 13” and the place of birth, “Unalaska,” are not in doubt. 


115 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


The St. Paul Island census years from 1890 to 1913 note Anna’s age alone without giving her birth 
year. Applying simple subtraction one is led to infer that her birth year is circa 1871. In 1914, the 
1914 census overlapped with the Pribilof Islands Native name standardization process (see Lindsay 
and Lindsay, Genealogy and Census, 2009, 3-4). Treasury Agent Henry C. Fassett transcribed 
information from church handwritten records. He wrote Anna’s birth year as 1879. The birth year 
“1879” appeared in the census records from 1914 until 1925 when Anna’s birth year was given as 
"1871.” The 1871 date continued to be applied through subsequent years (see Lindsay and Lindsay, 
Genealogy and Census, 2009). The authors believe the “1871” birth year is correct, especially when 
one compares it to the birth year of her first child, Ouliana, born in 1887. It seems reasonable to 
conclude that Agent Fassett erred in his original transcription in 1914. 

53 Pavla Stepetin retained her family birth name during her life with the Gromof family. Lindsay and 
Lindsay, Genealogy and Census, 2009, 207. Pavla married William “Willie” McGlashin of Unalaska in 
1912 (Lindsay and Lindsay, Genealogy and Census, 2009, 421, 441). 

54 Smith, The Church of the Holy Great Martyr, 35. 

55 Oleksa, Orthodox Alaska, 196 

56 Annual Report of Sealing Operations 1967, Pribilof Islands, Alaska, U.S. Bureau of Commmercial 
Fisheries, 1967, 9B. 

57 Details of biographical sketch provided by Larry Merculieff, Jan. 13, 2007, in an email to John 
Lindsay; also see Barbara Sweetland Smith, The Church of the Holy Great Martyr, 35. Access to de¬ 
tailed information regarding Elary Stepetin Gromoff’s second marriage eluded these authors. 

58 Smith and Petrivelli, A Sure Foundation, 62; and Smith, The Church of the Holy Apostles, 27. 

59 The name “Shaiashnikov” is spelled variously. The spelling used here is taken from Richard A. 

Pierce, Russian America (Kingston, ON: Limestone Press, 1990), 451. 

60 Reverend Baranov held church services and performed weddings at St. George during Oct. 1936. 
Official Journal, St. George Island, Alaska, 1936, Oct. 16. 

61 Kass’ian spelling is taken from Smith, The Church of the Holy Apostles, 27. Richard A. Pierce, Russian 
America, 451, spelled it Kas’ian. Fredericka Martin spelled it Kaysan. Kass’ian’s son, Innokenty 
served the Pribilof Islands periodically from Unalaska. 

62 Pierce, Russian America, 451-2, is the source for Shaiashnikov family genealogy. Ray Hudson, ed., 
People of the Aleutian Islands (Unalaska: Unalaska City School District, 1986), 100, stated that 
the couple had nine children; Nikolai was not among those listed by Pierce. Pierce stated that Petr 
Shaiashnikov died in 1965 at 110 years of age. The author’s search of census records from Unalaska 
and Alaska could not support the 1965 date and suggest that 1865 may be a more accurate date. 

63 Oleksa, Orthodox Alaska, 155. 

64 Pierce, Russian America, 451; Hudson, People of the Aleutian Islands, 85-6, 97; and Smith, The 
Church of the Holy Apostles, 27. 

65 Pierce, Russian America, 451-2. 

66 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1873, 16. 

67 Pierce, Russian America, 451; and Lydia T. Black, Russians in Alaska (Fairbanks, AI<: Univ. Alaska 
Press), 217. 

68 Smith, The Church of the Holy Apostles, 5. 

69 Ibid., 28. 

70 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1875, 319. 

71 Joseph Stanley-Brown, “Report of Agent J. Stanley-Brown for 1892,” Dec. 1, 1892, in Seal and 
Salmon Fisheries and General Resources of Alaska, vol. 1, 331-3. 

72 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, Oct. 14, 1896, 69. 

73 Ibid., Oct. 15, 1896, 69. 

74 Marti Murray, Memory Eternal: A Baseline Inventory of the Burials, 28-9. 

75 Much of the information respecting Father Rysev was derived from Smith, The Church of the Holy 
Apostles, 28. Smith credits her information to the Department of History and Archives, Orthodox 
Church in America, Syosset, NY. 

76 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log (Agent Joseph Murray), 1893, 175. 

77 Ibid., Sept. 18, 1897, 200-201. 

78 Ibid., May 15, 1898, 268-69. 

79 Ibid., 269. The handwritten transcription of Agent Murray’s letter runs from page 269 to page 273 in 
the logbook. 


116 





The Russian Orthodox Church 


80 Smith, The Church of the Holy Apostles, 29, provided most of Rev. Orloff’s biography. 

81 Oleksa, Orthodox Alaska, 196. As an interesting anecdote, in 1912 Native Chief Nicoli Gromoff and 
the sealers decided that the priest, Fr. Orlov, should receive $350 as his “first class share” of the seal 
revenue funding allotment distributed among the community, plus an additional $160 from the gov¬ 
ernment appropriation to support the community. The first class share represented an increase from 
the $250 share previously given to the priest. St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, Feb. 16, 1912. 

82 A photo of Marcia, Margaret, and Alexander Melovidoff along with Nadesda and Nicoli Orloff was 
printed in The Washington Post, Nov. 11, 1890. The quality of the image was too poor for repro¬ 
duction here. The name “Nadesda” belonged to the deceased mother of the Orloff children. These 
authors offer no explanation for “Nadesda” being given as the pictured girl’s name, but we suggest 
the child’s name was likely Nadia. 

83 Smith, The Church of the Holy Apostles, 29, is the source of information about Father Kochergin. 

84 St. Paul Agent’s Log (Agent Harry Fassett), Oct. 13, 1917. 

85 Another photograph of Rev. Gregory Kochergin can be viewed in Barrett Willoughby, Alaska 
Holiday (Boston: Little, Brown, 1940), 222. 

86 Smith, The Church of the Holy Apostles, 30, is the source of the biographical information for 
Archimandrite Prozorov. Smith credits her information to the Department of History and Archives, 
Orthodox Church in America, Syosset, NY. 

87 Ibid., 30, is the source of the biographical information about John Zlobin. 

88 Ibid., 31, is the source of the biographical information about Father Baranov. Note: Smith spells 
Baranov’s given name as both “Markary” and "Makary.” We have elected to spell the name as 
“Makary,” whereas Lindsay, Rappaport, and Lindsay, Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Guide to Photographs 
and Illustrations spelled the name as “Markary.” 

89 Ibid., 32, is the source of the biographical information about Father Oskolkoff. 

90 The St. George Island Agent’s Log for Dec. 21, 1878, stated that Stepanida Malavansky was born out 
of wedlock. Aquilina Lestenkof in an email to John Lindsay on Mar. 3, 2008, stated that Stepanida’s 
father was James C. Redpath, Alaska Commercial Company Agent. 

91 Smith, The Church of the Holy Great Martyr, 28. 

92 H. Euneau, “Sealing report” (unpaginated), Dec. 22, 1965 (Fur-Seal Archives, NMML Library, 

Seattle, WA under the file subheading “Education”). “During this entire year [1965] St. Paul 
Orthodox Church has had a resident priest. Rev. Father Lestenkof [who] was transferred to St. Paul 
from St. George during 1964.” This statement was found under the report’s subheading “Religion.” 

93 More than one Native agent might have operated a seal-stick business during any given year. 

94 Simeon Melovidov taught on St. Paul Island from 1889 to 1911. He was fluent in Aleut, Russian, and 
English. 

95 Father Lestenkof’s biographical sketch was written by his daughter, Aquilina Debbie Lestenkof, and 
transmitted to John Lindsay via email in Dec. 2006. 


117 






Boys and men preparing for “Starring” celebration to take place during the Greek 
Russian Christmas Holiday, St. George Island, circa 1897. (AMNH Special Collections, 
Chichester Coll., HDC240, neg. 034947) 



Jhe yi ll 4 .ge. j 5 t. Peorge's Jsland. 

From the I Vest—June 2, 1873. 

The Village. St. George’s Island. From the West—June 2, 1873. Henry Wood Elliott, published in 
his 1873 Report on the Prybilov Group, or Seal Islands of Alaska. 


118 























Biographies of Individuals 



Abbey, Charles Augustus ( 1841 - 1919 ) 

Captain, U.S. Revenue Marine Division, 1872-1886 
Genealogy 

The son of Horatio Gates Abbey and Maria N. 

(Young) Abbey, Charles Augustus Abbey was 
born April 28, 1841, in Brooklyn, New York. 

Charles Abbey’s parents separated when he was 
ten years old, and he then lived with his paternal 
aunt and her husband in the village of Rondout 
(later absorbed into the city of Kingston), Ulster 
County, New York. His father, a musician, became 
the founder and head of the Columbia Institute in 
Brooklyn. His mother served as Principal of Castle 
Street High School in Geneva, New York . 1 Charles 
Abbey married Pamela Hjonsbery in 1864, in 
Brooklyn, New York. Charles and Pamela had six 
children: Hartwell, Ella, Raymond, Lucelia, Burt 
and Mathew. Senior Captain Charles Augustus 
Abbey, U.S. Coast Guard, died at age seventy- 
eight in Newport, New York, on March 30, 1919. 2 

Biographical Sketch 

Charles Abbey went to sea aboard the clipper ship Surprise less than a month shy of 
his 15th birthday in 1856, after dropping out of the Peekskill Military Academy . 3 He re¬ 
mained a sailor throughout his life. He was promoted to captain in the U.S. Revenue 



CHARLES A. A It IIR Y AT THE AGE OF FIFTEEN 
h'rum (in nltt 

Charles Augustus Abbey, age 15. (Harpur 
A. Gosnell, 1937.) 


119 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


Cutter Service on April 26, 1872, at New York, and by June 22, 1889, served as Inspector 
of Life-Saving Stations at New York. 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Captain Charles Abbey deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration on April 8, 1892, at 
Washington D.C., before Notary Public Sevellon A. Brown: 

I am 51 years of age, and am Captain in the Revenue Marine ... and have been in the 
service for nearly twenty-eight years. From June 1886, until the latter part of August 1886, 

I was in charge of the revenue steamer Corwin, cruising in Bering Sea for the purpose of 
protecting seal life, the fur-seal industry, and the Government interests in Alaska generally. 

On June 10, 1886,1 left the Columbia River, proceeding to Unalaska ... and thence ... the 
Pribilof, or Seal Islands. Soon after leaving Unalaska we began to see seals in the water 
about the steamer. Within seven hours after leaving Unalaska I sighted the schooner Sierra, 
of and from San Francisco, with her boats out sealing.... Before I could overhaul her boats 
were called in and all evidences of sealing were out of sight. There were seal skins in her 
hold; but as there was no evidence that any had been taken in Bering Sea, I disarmed her, 
she being without a permit for use of arms and ammunition, I let her go. The next morning 
sighted the schooner City of San Diego, of San Francisco.... As she also had no permit for 
arms and ammunition, I disarmed her. 

I then called at the Pribilof Islands and cruised about them for some days without seeing 
any vessels of any kind.... returning to St. Paul... it was very difficult to find the island 
because of the dense fog ... thence went easterly along the Aleutian Islands. On the 17th 
seized the schooner San Diego, of and from San Francisco ... She had 577 seal skins on 
board, and the captain confessed to having taken seals in Bering Sea. I took her to Unalaska 
that night. 

On August 1st I seized a boat containing three men and eight dead seals. Proceeding 
southeasterly, seized another boat with men and several dead seals on board. Seized the 
schooner Thornton, of and from Victoria, British Columbia. The two [smaller] boats 
seized belonged to the Thornton. The same evening seized the schooner Carolena, of 
Victoria ... Half an hour later seized four boats belonging to the Carolena with dead seals 
on board. That night spoke [sic] schooner Twilight, sealing, but the captain stated they had 
taken no seals in Bering Sea, and on account of the schooners I had in tow I was unable to 
overhaul her. 

The next morning at 4:10 sighted a schooner, evidently a sealer, but was unable to pursue 
her, owing to the fact of having the Thornton and Carolena in tow. At 4:40 a.m. spoke 
the schooner Onward, of Victoria.... The master acknowledged he had been sealing in 
Bering Sea. Boarding her and finding seal skins and unskinned dead seals on board, I 
seized her and took her also in tow. At 7:20 a. m. sighted another schooner, but she fled, 
and outsailed us. At 11 a.m., sighted a schooner under shortened sail. She at once changed 
her course and made all sail southeast and escaped. Reached Unalaska that night. The 
Thornton had on board four rifles and six shotguns; the Onward, one rifle and thirteen 
shotguns; the Carolena, four rifles, one musket, and five shotguns. Altogether, the vessels 
I seized had over 2,000 seal skins. My orders made no distinction as to seizing English or 
American vessels, and each vessel seized received the same treatment without relation to 
the nationality of its crew or owner. Fogs are almost constant in Bering Sea in the summer 
time. During the fifty-eight days I cruised in those waters fifty-four days were foggy or 
rainy, the other four days being partly clear. The reports of the guns of the hunters might 
often be heard when no vessel could be seen. 

The following statements here made in relation to open-sea sealing are based upon my own 
observation, and also upon information I received from conversations with forty or fifty 
men engaged in open-sea sealing in Bering Sea. The average size of the sealing vessels is 
from 25 to 50 tons, and the number of the crew varies from 10 to 20 or 25. A vessel is fitted 


120 





Biographies A ♦ Abbey 


out with about 4 to 6 boats, or 6 or 8 canoes. The white hunters used either a Winchester 
rifle or a double-barreled shotgun, and a gaff with a shaft 4 or 5 feet long. The Indians use 
a toggle-headed spear, with a shaft 7 or 8 feet in length. Each boat has a rower and one or 
two hunters, and is also provided with a compass, small amount of provisions, ammunition 
locker, seal knives, and a short club. The boats, on being lowered from the vessel, provided 
the water is fairly smooth, go toward all points of the compass, and I have found them as 
far as 6 miles from the schooner. 

The white hunter in a boat, when a seal appears on the surface, if within 50 yards, fires at 
it. If killed outright, the seal immediately sinks, and the boat is rowed for the place where 
it sank; but I do not think they recover many seals thus killed, and every sealer stated that 
they seldom expected to get a seal when killed outright. It is almost impracticable to take 
a seal in the water unless it is wounded so that it is stunned, when it goes into a “flurry,” 
similar to that of a whale when it is wounded. The boat then being pulled alongside, the seal 
is gaffed and dragged into it. The skill of the hunter has a great deal to do with the number 
of seals secured of those killed or wounded, but the most expert does not get more than 
half he hits and the average for hunters in general would be about three in ten.... the seal 
hunter shoots every kind of seal he sees. 4 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Captain Abbey confiscated five pirate-sealing vessels during the 1886 sealing season. The 
New York Times reported on Abbey’s triumph that year. 

Capt. Abbey up till last spring served on the Atlantic coast, having been in command upon 
nearly every station on the coast from Maine to Florida. He was commanding the U.S. 

Grant [USS Grant ] at New York when he was ordered to take the Corwin on last summer’s 
hunt for seal pirates, to protect the seal fisheries and the Government interests in Alaska 
generally. 5 

When asked by a representative of the New York Times, “What condition of affairs 
made it necessary that you should be sent on this northern cruise?” Abbey replied: 

The Government was confronted with the pressing necessity of protecting the seal upon 
and around the Pribylof or Seal Islands. There is the last stamping [sic] ground of the 
fur seal his last hope. He had been driven there and it is his last refuge. He has been 
exterminated from the Southern Hemisphere, and he breeds now at these islands only, 
and he must be protected or sealskin sacques will soon become curiosities. When Alaska 
was bought by the United States these islands, of course, were included in the purchase. 

Having these seals upon them they were very valuable; in fact they were the only thing then 
known of any particular value in Alaska, and, of course, were reserved by the United States. 

In 1867, the country was ceded to us, and in 1870, these islands were leased to the Alaska 
Commercial Company, who have the privilege of taking 100,000 seals on these island under 
special supervision of the officers of the Treasury Department. Section 1956 of the Revised 
Statutes prohibits the killing of any fur-bearing animal in Alaska or the waters thereof, 
except by the natives, or as otherwise provided by the lease of this company, and this lease 
expires in 1890. 6 




121 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


Adams, Benjamin Bristow ( 1875 - 1957 ) 

Artist, Second Joint Bering Sea Fur-Seal Commission, 1897 

Genealogy 

Born on November 11, 1875 in Washington, 
D.C., Benjamin Adams was the son of Special 
Agent of the Treasury Department Crawford C. 
Adams and Ada G. (Harrison) Adams. Benjamin 
Adams married Luella Farmer in 1902, and they 
had four children: Eleanor, Gertrude, Everett, and 
Benjamin Bristow II. Adams died at the age of 82 
in Ithaca on November 19, 1957. 

Biographical Sketch 

Benjamin Adams attended Central High School 
in Washington, D.C., from 1890 to 1892. In 1892, 
he left school to become co-founder and editor 
of a weekly current events teacher’s magazine, 
Pathfinder. He left Washington, D.C., to attend 
Stanford University in California. Adams found¬ 
ed and edited the Stanford Chaparral from 1889 
to 1900, and he paid his room and board by apply¬ 
ing his journalistic experiences writing for such 
newspapers as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and 
the Boston Transcript. He returned to work on Pathfinder following his graduation from 
Stanford in 1900. Later, he worked as a free-lance writer and illustrator for McClure’s, 
Everybody’s, and Country Life In America magazines, as well as the Washington Star. He 
worked as an editor and a forester for the U.S. Forest Service’s Office of Information from 
1906 to 1914. In November 1914, Adams became a full professor at Cornell University’s 
Agricultural School, now called the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He was in 
charge of publications and information besides teaching journalism, drawing and paint¬ 
ing. After his retirement from Cornell, he held the position of mayor of Ithaca, New York 
from 1948 to 1955. 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

David Starr Jordan, Commissioner in Charge of Fur-Seal Investigations of 1896-1897, 
appointed Benjamin Bristow Adams as artist for the investigations at the end of Adams’ 
freshman year at Stanford University in 1897. The commission used his eleven pen- 
and-ink illustrations of fur seals drawn from nature to illustrate its 1898-99 four-vol¬ 
ume report. The original sketches are preserved at the Smithsonian National Museum 
of Natural History’s Department of Paleobiology in Washington, D.C., and Cornell 
University’s Carl Koch Library, Ithaca, New York. 



Bristow Adams. (Courtesy of Association 
Communications Excellence.) 


122 











Biographies A ♦ Adams 



“An abducted cow.” Pen and ink by Bristow Adams, circa 1897. (NMNH 1011.) 8 



Face of fur-seal bull. Pencil drawing by 
Bristow Adams, August 15, 1897. (Bristow 
Adams Papers, Cornell Univ. Library, 
Division of Rare and Manuscript Coll., 
Sealsketch 28.) 



123 

























Pribilof Islands: The People 


Adams, George Russell (1845-1933) 

Trader, Parrott & Company, 1868 

Agent, Alaska Commercial Company, 1870-1876 


Genealogy 

George Russell Adams was born March 20, 1845, at Hallowell, Maine, the son of Samuel 
Adams and Philomena (Johnson) Adams. George Adams was married in 1877 at San 
Francisco, California, to Lillian Gertrude Hinckley, born at Blue Hill, Maine, October 26, 
1857, of Otis Witham Hinckley and Sara Fisher (Stevens) Hinckley. The couple had three 
children born in San Francisco: Edyth L. Adams, born January 7, 1878; and twins Oliver 
Morton Adams and Otis Johnson Adams, born April 7, 1882. George Russell Adams died 
February 24, 1933, at Los Angeles, California. 9 

Biographical Sketch 

George R. Adams was employed as a San Francisco fur dealer, and lived at home with his 
parents. He became involved with the Western Union Telegraph Expedition in 1865, 10 
also known as the American Telegraph Expedition per Adams’ Fur-Seal Arbitration de¬ 
position given below. 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

George R. Adams deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration on April 6, 1892, before E. A. 
Stowell at San Francisco, California: 

I am a citizen of the United States and a resident Paso Robles, Cal., where I am employed in 
general business. I first went to Alaska on the bark Golden Gate, Captain Scammon, June 
10, 1865, on the American Telegraph Expedition and explored the country about Bering 
Sea from St. Michaels north, returning in September 1867. 

In the spring of 1868,1 returned to Alaska soon after its purchase by the United States. 

I went for the late John Parrott, of San Francisco, direct to the islands of St. Paul and 
St. George. We were the first parties who went to those islands after the purchase, and 
commenced taking seals about the 1st of July. We and the other parties took about 65,000 
that year from St. George alone. We killed no females except by accident, for the reason 
that we thought at that time the skins of females were worthless. 

No sealing was done at the Pribilof Islands during the seasons of 1869 11 and 1870 except for 
food for the natives, the Government having declared these islands a reservation, and the 
lessees did not perfect the lease in time to commence operations that year (1870). From the 
start I was employed by the Alaska Commercial Company and remained in their service 
until 1876, in charge of the company’s business on St. George Island. During the season of 
1876,1 was in charge of their business at St. Paul Island. 12 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Historian Harold F. Taggart (“Sealing on St. George Island, 1868”) described Adams’ 
work under William H. Ennis, Agent for Parrott & Company at St. George Island early 
(April 24) in 1868. When Ennis departed to attend to filing proper papers for trading in 
Alaska, he left Adams and Osborne Howes Jr. in charge of the St. George sealing opera- 


124 









Biographies A ♦ Adams 


tions. Taggart warned his readers that Adams enjoyed telling a good tale so that some of 
his yarns might best be taken with a grain of salt. For example, Adams modified or clari¬ 
fied Ennis’ real reason behind his departure from St. George. According to Adams, Ennis 
had to have his vessel, the Caldera, which had rum aboard, cleared with the government 
before the Caldera could land in Siberia. The Parrott crew, said Adams, used the rum to 
bribe the Natives into lightering lumber and other cargo off the Caldera during a reli¬ 
gious holiday. Further, Adams claimed with relish that he got the islands’ Orthodox priest 
“gloriously ” drunk on the rum because the priest, Father Shiesnikoff, 13 had vociferously 
decried Adams’ disrespect for the Natives and their religion. 14 

During 1868, competition among rival sealing companies required either diplomacy 
or fisticuffs, but diplomacy eventually won out. Hutchinson, Kohl & Company held the 
strongest position on the islands for taking control of the seal harvest. The Company 
persuaded most of its competitors to enter into an agreement that allowed each to 
profit from the taking of the seals. In July 1868, Captain Gustaf Niebaum of Hutchinson, 
Kohl arrived at St. George and offered Adams a company position at St. Michael Island. 
Adams accepted Niebaum's offer and traveled to St. Michael aboard the brig Constantine 
to accept the former Russian-American Company property from the Russian governor, 
Prince Maksoutoff. 15 

Adams wrote of his escapades at the Pribilofs in an unpublished article titled “Pioneer 
Fur Sealing in Alaska.” 16 


Adams, Thomas E. 

Assistant Special Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury 
St. Paul Island, May 1893-September 1894 
St. Paul Island, June 1895-August 1896 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Assistant Special Agent Thomas E. Adams served on St. Paul Island under Agent Joseph 
Crowley from May 1893 until the end of the sealing in 1896, excepting September 1894- 
May 1895. It was during his stay through the winter of 1896 that the first St. Paul Village 
Council was formed—a result of community displeasure over the theft of materials from 
the doctor’s residence and the village shop. A search of people’s homes and other build¬ 
ings located the stolen items, along with others not belonging to the culprit. The thief had 
been after medicinal alcohol and other materials for making home brew, or quassT The 
Native community selected a group of men to form a council to address the quass prob¬ 
lem, as well as other community issues. 18 Government officials approved of the council 
but insisted they also had to approve any decisions it made. During 1896, the council held 
at least four meetings. Adams recorded the outcomes in the Agent’s Log; his record of the 
initial meeting read: 


T 


125 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


The First St. Paul Island Council is Formed 

February 24, 1896 

The immediate men who are termed a council and whom I consult with upon all matters 
pertaining to the community interests and welfare are: Apolan Burdukasky, Karp Buterin, 

Aggie Kushing, Markel Volkoff, Theo Sedick, and Martin NederazofF. 

They discuss any and all questions with the officer and are called in to confer with him 
related to complaints, adjustment of quarrels and punishment, this being agreeable to the 
community. They then communicate the result of their conferences with the govt, official 
to the community in a general meeting. The council after consulting with the adult natives 
brought to me for consideration the following regulation drafted among themselves, 
without suggestion from me, and asked my approval, until it was given. 19 

The following week the St. Paul Village Council passed its first resolution, express¬ 
ing its concern about quass brewing. The resolution handed to Assistant Special Agent 
Adams for approval read: 


St. Paul Island, Feb. 16, 1896 

We the undersigned natives of St. Paul Island, do openly recognize and appreciate the 
evils of quass brewing and damaging results it makes upon domestic happiness in the 
community and have as the result of our own sincere wishes as well as those of Mr. T.E. 

Adams, U.S. Treasury Agent, organized ourselves for the supervision of quass. We agree 
1st. To suppress all quass brewing and its use, even in seclusion, in this Community. 

2nd. We bind ourselves to strictly observe the fulfillment of the above. 

3rd. Any person or persons found guilty of violating any or part of these resolutions must 
undergo such punishment as shall be deemed suitable. 

The First St. Paul Community Resolution is Signed 

[Thirty-seven signatories]: Anton Melovidov, Apolon Bourdukoffsky, Aggi Kushing, 

Alex Hansen, Carp Buterin, Peter Oustigoff, Neon Mandregan, Theo Sedick, John Fratis, 

Markel VolkofF, Alex Melovidov, Geo. Emanoff, Elary Stepetin, Nicoli Bogodanoff, Neon 
Tetoff, Alex. Merculieff, John Rezuitzoff, Nicoli Gromoff, John Kochootin, Geo. Kechirgin, 

John Tetoff, John M. Knukoff, Vabirian Thaisnikoff, John Stepetin, John N. Knukoff, 

Dan Raranchin, Vassily Reduli, Euphenu Kochooten, Paul Hobenoff, Peter Tetoff, Neon 
Thabolin, Parfiri Pankoff, Arsony Arkashoff, Stepetin Kozeroff, Stepan Nederozoff, Kerrick 
Terrakanoff, Dorafany Stepetin. 20 

The Village Council convened a third time for what became the first St. Paul Island 
community meeting, in the village shop. As entered into the Agent’s Log: 

Sunday May 10, 1896 

That the natives had agreed not to shoot sea lions, not to kill sea lion pups and do all they 
could to protect them. 

It was agreed that a library and reading room should be started and that monthly 
subscriptions should be taken up for the purpose of purchasing books, and an effort made 
to secure, by purchase or otherwise, the use of the old billiard hall. 

It was agreed that all children should be kept at home after dark and more interest should 
be taken in the school and having the children learn. 

The committee also asked that the officials of the Treasury Dept, make some enquiry 
relating to their money, a fund of $15,000 or more deposited with the chancery years ago. 

The same being intended to draw interest, no interest has ever been received nor can they 
get any information themselves regarding the principle. 21 


126 






Biographies A ♦ Adams -Akerly 


I was asked to request of the chief agent that time be allowed the natives during the 1896 
season to do the following work which is necessary for themselves and the community: viz: 

To dig two or three wells 

To construct a wash house for village use 

To construct two baths for village use 

Two of the bells hanging in church yard were donated to two poor congregations, one bell 
to go to the native church at Kasquiquim and the other to [unreadable] 

At the meeting and afterwards $16.65 each was secured towards a library fund, more to be 
subscribed as the men earn some money. 22 

A month later the Natives adopted another resolution, which they submitted and 
received council approval for. This resolution concerned the church funds: 

Wednesday June 10th 1896 

Resolved that the money belonging to church of St. Paul Island, Alaska, now in the hands of 
the church officials of said church, will not be permitted to be shipped from this island, as it 
is needed badly for the repairs of the church and its vicinity, also for the priests house and 
cemetery and its fence, [unclear] ... on behalf of the people. 

(sg'd) Simeon Melovidov, Markel Volkoff, Aggie Kushing, Karp Buterin, Martin Nederazoff, 

Theo. Sedick. Attest: Apolon Bourdukoffsky, chief 

Approved; Thos. E. Adams, Spec Agt. in charge St. Paul Island” 23 

The resolution went into effect on July 8, 1896, with a formal letter from Agent Joseph B. 

Crowley to the Unalaska Ecclesiastical Superintendent, Reverend Alexander Kedrousky, 
when granting him permission to visit St. Paul Island but not for the purpose of obtaining 
funds much needed by the community for their own church property. 24 


Akerly, Dr. James C. S., PhD, MD (b. i860) 

Physician, North American Commercial Company, St. Paul Island, 1891 
Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Dr. James Akerly deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration on April 16, 1892, before Notary 
Public Clement Bennett at San Francisco, California: 

I am a graduate of the University of California, 1882, and a graduate of the Cooper Medical 
College 1885. From June to August 18th, 1891,1 was Surgeon on the Revenue Marine 
steamer Corwin. From August 18th to November 24th, 1891,1 was resident Physician on 
St. Paul Island, one of the Pribilof or Seal Islands. I am at present a practicing physician at 
Oakland, California. 25 


127 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


Albrecht, Clarence John (1891-1978) 

Zoologist, Photographer, Cinematographer, and Taxidermist, Field Museum of Natural 
Flistory, Chicago, St. Paul and St. George Islands, 1937. 



C. J. ALBRECHT 

Noted Explorer, Photographer, Zoologist and Animal Sculptor of the Field 
Museum of Natural History, Chicago. 22 Expeditions from Africa to 
Arctic Alaska. Outstanding and Thrilling Motion Pictures 


Clarence J. Albrecht. (Special Coll., Univ. 
Iowa Libraries) 


Genealogy 

Clarence John Albrecht, the son of Frederick 
Albrecht and Louise (Schumacher) Albrecht, 
was born September 28, 1891, at Waverly, Iowa. 26 
While living in Seattle, Washington, circa 1917, 
Clarence Albrecht married Connie L. Handy of 
Iowa. Their daughter, Connie J. Albrecht was 
born in Seattle in 1920. Clarence Albrecht died 
January 1978 in Clitherall, Otter Tail County, 
Minnesota. 27 

Biographical Sketch 

Clarence Albrecht graduated from Iowa State 
University. He “served successively as a fac¬ 
ulty member of the University of Washington, 
as Curator of Zoological Exhibits in the State 
Museum at Seattle, and as a staff member of 
the American Museum of New York and Field 
Museum, Chicago.” 28 He also was a photographer, 
zoologist, and explorer. 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

In the 1930s, while working at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Albrecht 
conducted a lecture series that included his Pribilof motion picture, Ottiga, the Master of 
the Harem or the Life History of the Alaskan Fur Seal. 29 Albrecht traveled to the Pribilof 
Islands in 1937 as a staff taxidermist for the Field Museum. While there, he collected 
forty specimens for the exhibit in the Hall of Marine Mammals, “made plaster casts for 
taxidermic work, skinned the seals on the spot, and preserved the pelts for mounting.” 30 


Alexander, Alvin Burton (1854-ciRCA 1920) 

Fishery Expert and Photographer, U.S. Fish Commission (1888-1904) 

Genealogy 

Alvin Burton Alexander was born in May 1854 at Camden, Maine, to Nancy C. (Jordan) 
Alexander and Levi H. Alexander (1833-1911), a Lynn, Massachusetts shipbuilder and 
inventor. On March 4, 1885, in Lynn, Massachusetts, Alvin married Josephine B. Ryan, 


128 









Biographies A ♦ Albrecht - Alexander 


born July 1857 in Nova Scotia, Canada; no children were born to them. By 1910, the 
Alexanders lived on Sixth Street in Washington, D.C. 31 

Biographical Sketch 

Alvin Burton Alexander spent his youth in the seaport village of Lynn, Massachusetts. 
The 1870 U.S. Census showed him to be sixteen years old and working as a fisherman. 
Ten years later he remained a Lynn resident, unmarried, and working as a carpenter in his 
father’s shipbuilding business. Alvin B. Alexander joined the U.S. Fish Commission and 
crewed with the Albatross in the North Pacific as a fisheries biologist and photographer 
until at least 1904. He subsequently settled in Washington, D.C., as a civil servant for the 
Bureau of Fisheries. His photographs of the pelagic sealing era are identified in many 
government and other publications by his recognizable ABA initials. 32 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Alvin B. Alexander deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration on May 26, 1892, before H. L. 
Burkett at Fort Townsend, Washington: 33 

Alvin B. Alexander ... 37 years of age, a citizen of Gloucester, Mass., and have been for 
six years and still am an employee of the U.S. Fish Commission as a fishery expert, being 
detailed for service on the Fish Commission steamer Albatross. On March 29th I was 
detailed for temporary service on the United States revenue steamer Corwin, and am 
still so engaged. During my service on the Corwin I have cruised as far north as Yakutat 
Bay. I have visited, with but few exceptions, all the ports and native villages from Dixon’s 
Entrance to and including Yakutat Bay. I have personally conversed with the Indians, 
owners of vessels, seal hunters, both native and white, and others engaged in the sealing 
business. I have been in canoes and boats, and personally observed the taking of seals by 
all methods practiced on this coast, and have thus sought to familiarize myself in every 
way with the aquatic habits of the seal, their habitat, method of capture, and all matters of 
interest connected with the sealing industry. 

From my general knowledge of natural history, from my study of the habits of seals, as well 
as from the opportunities I have had to acquaint myself with the sources of destruction 
which are at work, I firmly believe that pelagic sealing would not only account for the 
diminution of the seal herd, but if continued the seals will inevitably be commercially 
destroyed. 34 

An excerpt of Alvin Alexander’s testimony was used by the British to counter the 
popular claim that continued to the near-present day (2008) that the fur seal sinks almost 
immediately upon being shot. To the contrary, Alexander stated: 

It has been my observation that the rapidity with which seals sink is influenced by several 
conditions. A pregnant female will sink less quickly than a male of equal size. If a seal be 
shot at a time when the air is well exhausted in the lungs, it will sink more quickly than if 
killed when the lungs are inflated. If a seal is asleep and shot in the back of the head it will 
float for several minutes, thus enabling the hunter to secure it. 35 

Regardless of this view promoted by the British, Alexander offered additional details 
as to why the nearly indiscriminate killing of seals by pelagic sealers was significantly 
contributing to the diminution of the herd. 3 ' 1 


.v 


129 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


Alger, Merle Emmitt ( 1906 - 1995 ) 

Assistant Sealing Agent, St. Paul Island, 1935-1937 



Merle Alger holding seal pup, St. Paul 
Island. (Courtesy Rebecca Kirby.) 


West Virginian Gets 
Post on Bering Isle 


WASHINGTON, March L. ... ) 
—Constable Merle E. Alger of 
Charles Town, Jefferson county, 
W, Va„ got ci job today, but he 
has to ro almost to the North 
Pule to begin work. 

Oil recommendation of Repre¬ 
sentative Randolph. Democrat. 
West Virginia, he was appointed 
a member of the bureau of fish¬ 
eries staff on the Pribiluff islands 
in the .Bering sea, not far from 
tin; Arctic circle. 

The islands ore rocky bits of 
land covered with only stunted 
Arctic vegetation — frequented 
chiefly by seals, which go there 
for the summer. 

Constable Alger will sail from 
Seattle April 23 and will take his 
• wife and daughter with him. 

“Alger has a love of adventure,” 
Randolph said. "Hr wanted to go 
to the Pribiluff islands.” 


“West Virginian Gets Post on Bering Isle” 
("Charleston Daily Mail, March 20, 1935, 
2 .) 


Genealogy 

Merle Emmitt Alger was born September 13, 
1906, at Springfield, Page County, Virginia, the 
son of Hubert Abraham Alger and Nora Bell 
(Burner) Alger. At Charles Town, West Virginia, 
in 1924, Merle Alger married Rebecca Amy 
Campbell, born at Kearneysville, West Virginia 
(January 10, 1907), daughter of John Thomas 
Campbell and Rebecca (Strider) Campbell. Merle 
and Rebecca Alger’s daughter, Rebecca “Becky” 
Alger, was born in 1927 at Charles Town. Merle 
Emmitt Alger died at Charles Town on February 
17, 1995. 37 

Biographical Sketch 

Merle Alger spent his early years as a farm boy 
in Springfield, Virginia. As a teenager he lived 
with his parents and family in Ranson, Jefferson 
County, West Virginia. In 1927, Alger became a 
Jefferson County constable in Charles Town, a 
position he held until May of 1935, at which time 
he left the town for his assignment with the U.S. 
Fish and Wildlife Service to assist with the sealing 
operations on the Pribilof Islands, Alaska. 

Alger’s grandson, Dr. Douglas Allara, re¬ 
called being told how his grandfather Merle got 
the Pribilof assignment. “It was the middle of the 
Depression era and when Grandfather was ap¬ 
proached by his well-known acquaintance, West 
Virginia’s Senator Jennings Randolph, and asked, 
‘Do you want a job in Alaska assisting with the 
sealing industry at the Pribilof Islands? You and 
your family will have housing, food, all expenses 
paid for.’... He answered yes. 38 

Upon his return to Charles Town from 
Alaska, Merle Alger was appointed Justice of the 
Peace and served in that position for Jefferson 
County until June 1975. Upon his retirement, 


130 















Biographies A ♦ Alger 


the 68 year old said he has heard about 20,500 criminal cases and about 9,000 civil cases 
during his tenure in the court.... Alger said he won’t miss his work, adding, “I was always 
busy and enjoyed it, but I can’t take it anymore.” 39 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Merle E. Alger, his wife Rebecca, and their daughter Becky arrived at St. Paul Island on 
May 12, 1935, just as the sealing season had begun. Alger’s first assignment was leading 
a crew of twelve temporary island men in clearing rock from the Reef Point seal runway. 
Several years later the Agent’s Report told why such work was necessary: 

The Reef seal-way at the point where it commences near the main Reef haul-out grounds, 
has lain across fields of great stones. In times past many seals have bruised themselves 
by falls when, during drives, they have scrambled from one boulder to another. Resulting 
from these injuries, large discolored areas developed in the pelts, to their commercial 
depreciation.” 40 

Besides working on the seal runway, Alger helped with various other jobs during 
1935, as noted in the Agent’s Log: repairing the road at the radio station; driving the truck 
and hauling carcasses for the by-products plant with the sealing gang; and after sealing 
season, taking charge of the crew cleaning Ice House Lake. 41 

During Alger’s stay on St. Paul Island, the Agent Log recorded that he was foreman 
for repair and replacement of damaged roadways, in particular Northeast Point Road, 
which took most of 1937 to complete. 

The new scoria road toward Marunich on St. Paul Island, which branches westward from 
the Northeast Point Road near Halfway Point, was extended one-half mile. Considerable 
work was done in repairing Northeast Point Road, including the sodding of sand dune 
along the roadway. Some repairs also were made on Zapadni Road. In the spring there was 
built a retaining wall for the road bank around Big Lake, where high water and continuous 
south winds had caused considerable damage during the winter. 42 

While on St. Paul Island, Alger observed the arrivals of the Japanese training ship 
Hakuyo Maru each July during 1935-37. The ship and crew came to the island at least 
one day each year during Alger’s time on the Pribilof Islands, and each year they played 



Ivory ring carved by Merle Alger. (Courtesy Rebecca Kirby.) 


131 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


Real Fisherman 
To Tell Tales 

Charles Town Man Com¬ 
ing Home From South-: 
ern Pacific 

By The AuocIMtd Pre«i 

WASHINGTON - Friends In 
Washington are looking forward to 
lone <ales of adventure from 
Merle Alger, of Charles Town, W. 
Va. 

Alger now t* emoule home from 
the Pribilof Islands, little dots on 
the map in ihe Pacific Oreon west 
of Alaska. 

He has spent two years in the is¬ 
lands as n reprsenlallve of the 
United States Bureau of Fisheries, 
Supervising seal capiure and other 
fishing. 

Alger kept in touch with friends 
in Washington during ihe two year 
period, sending them mementoes tf 
thi islands near the edge of the 
Arctic circle. 

Among the souvenirs lie sent to 
Washingtnn was a cigarette holder 
carved from the tusk of b seal. The 
holder, depicting a c reaching seal., 
was presented at Alger’s request to 
President Roosevelt by Represent, 
alive Jennings Randolph, Elkins. 


“Real Fisherman to Tell Tales” 
(Raleigh Register, Berkley, WV, 
Nov. 28, 1937, 15.) 


a baseball game against the Aleut team. On July 9, 1936, 
the Hakuyo Maru’s Captain Nakagawa and his officers also 
came ashore. After Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941, 
Alger interpreted the Japanese visits to St. Paul Island as 
possible spying missions. Alger told his grandchildren that 
he remembered the Japanese sailors were friendly to the 
children and asked to take photographs of them, then posi¬ 
tioned them so the photographs included the background 
images they were really after. 43 

Alger and his family left St. Paul Island for their home 
in West Virginia on November 2, 1937. 44 A local newspa¬ 
per article, “Real Fisherman to Tell Tales,” announced their 
homecoming with the following news item (however, he 
was returning from the North Pacific not the South Seas): 

Alger kept in touch with friends in Washington during the 
two year period, sending them mementoes of the islands, near 
the edge of the Arctic Circle. Among the souvenirs he sent to 
Washington was a cigarette holder carved from the tusk of 
a seal. The holder, depicting a crouching seal, was presented 
at Alger’s request to President Roosevelt by Representative 
Jennings Randolph, Elkins, West Virginia. 


Franklin D. Roosevelt with 
cigarette holder given by 
Seal Islands Treasury 
Agent Merle Alger. 
President Roosevelt in his 
study, looking at one of the 
Roosevelt Flouse account 
books. (Courtesy Franklin 
D. Roosevelt Library, 
Margaret Suckley, no. 73- 
113-88.) 



132 














Articles of interest brought back from Alaska by Merle Alger. (Courtesy Rebecca Kirby.) 
Circled cigarette holder, or a similar one, was sent by Merle Alger to President Roosevelt 
as a gift. 


133 














Prlbilof Islands: The People 


Aller, Henry Day ( 1880 - 1931 ) 

Storekeeper, U.S. Department of Commerce, St. George Island, 1917-1919 
Agent and Caretaker, U.S. Department of Commerce, St. Paul Island, 1920-1923 



Genealogy 

Henry D. Aller was born in New Jersey on March 
5, 1880. Henry Aller and Barbara E. Bartlett of 
Morris, Pennsylvania, were married by the Rev. 
John Edward Fort on September 29, 1920, in 
Washington, D.C. Henry and Barbara’s daughter, 
Jean Aller, was born August 15, 1922, at St. Paul 
Island, Alaska. A news article after Jean’s death 
in 1968 erroneously stated she had been the “first 
white child to be born on St. Paul, Pribilof Island, 
off the coast of Alaska .” 45 


Jean Aller Sheffield. (National League of 
American Pen Women, Washington, DC) 


Henry Day Aller died at Washington, D.C., 
March 10, 1931. 46 His daughter, Jean Aller, mar¬ 
ried Gregory John Sheffield, who became an 
advertising executive in Chicago, Illinois. The 
couple had one son, Keith Sheffield. Jean died in 
Chicago, Illinois, April 13, 1968. 47 


Biographical Sketch 

Henry Aller graduated with a BS degree from Rutgers University at New Brunswick, 
New Jersey, and became a researcher with the U.S. Fish Commission at Beaufort, North 
Carolina. By 1912, he had become director of the U.S. Fish Commission Faboratory at 
Beaufort. Aller left North Carolina for Alaska in 1917, starting first as the storekeeper 
on St. George Island, where he stayed until the fall of 1919. In 1920, he was promoted 
to agent and caretaker at St. Paul Island, where he remained until 1923. 48 His daughter, 
Jean, became the youngest member of the League of American Pen Women at the age of 
eleven. She had published a children’s book, titled Mac, with a Scottish terrier as the main 
character. She continued to write children’s books and “mastered the art of painting in 
oils on glass and wood .” 49 


134 







Biographies A « Aller - Allis 


Allis, Watson Colt (1857-1942) 

Assistant Agent, Alaska Commercial Company, St. Paul Island, 1882, 1887-1889 
Agent, North American Commercial Company, 1882-1913 
Agent, U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, St. Paul Island, 1913-1929 

Genealogy 

Watson Colt Allis’ genealogy was summarized by renowned Alaskan author Barrett 
Willoughby in the St. Helena Star newspaper following Allis’ death: 

Watson Colt Allis was born June 15, 1857, at Topsfield, Mass. He was the eighth generation 
of his family in America. When a babe in arms, he was taken to Randolph, Vermont, where 
he was raised to young manhood. 

His father was Obediah Dickinson Allis, a professor at Dartmouth College, who resigned 
from that post to preach for the Congregational Church until his death. His mother was 
Anne Eliza Colt, one of eleven children, whose father was a New York merchant and 
manufacturer of firearms [Colt Firearms Co.]. 50 

Biographical Sketch 

Alaskan author Barrett Willoughby’s biographical sketch about Watson Colt Allis in the 
April 10, 1942, edition of the California newspaper St. Helena Star continued in part: 

He was the only adventurer in his colonial family who ever came West. After having 
learned a trade and being employed by the Fairbanks Seal [Scale] Co. on both the Atlantic 
and Pacific coast he became interested in whaling and the sealing industry of the North. 

His adventures included a whaling expedition within the Arctic Circle where the ship 
was caught in the ice and wrecked, losing a fortune and narrowly escaping with his life. 

Later he was associated with the North American Commercial Company and the Alaska 
Commercial Company, and in accord with the development ensuing government control 
of Alaska, he entered the employ of the United States Department of Commerce with the 
Bureau of Fisheries, now known as the Wild Life Service, in the regulation and protection 
of the fur seal herds with Summer quarters on the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea. 51 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Watson C. Allis deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration on July 5, 1892, before Public 
Notary E. H. Tharp at San Francisco, California: 

I am 36 years old, an American citizen residing in San Francisco, California, and by 
occupation an Agent of the Fairbanks Scale Company, engaged in selling and setting up 
scales. In the summer of 1882, and again from the spring of 1887 to the fall of 1889,1 was 
Assistant Agent of the Alaska Commercial Company upon St. Paul Island, and worked four 
sealing seasons in charge of a gang of natives engaged in seal killing. The work was done 
under the general direction of the Superintendent of the Sealeries, who placed a “boss” or 
leader at the head of each gang of men. It was the business of the boss to divide his gang in 
proper proportions into “killers,” “rippers,” and “skinners.” The “killers” were generally the 
same men day after day through the season. They became very expert in the management 
of the drove and the use of the seal club, and very rarely made the mistake of hitting a seal 
that was not wanted. 52 



135 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

Watson Colt Allis worked on the Pribilof Islands from 1882 to 1922. For a book by Barrett 
Willoughby titled Alaska Holiday (1940), Allis told of his forty years on the Pribilof 
Islands, known to him as the “Treasure Islands of the Mists.” Two excerpts are given here: 



Priteff Official. 70 : 

sC- 


MR. and MRS. ~W. C./ALLIS, who were 
married here yesterday. ’’Allis is a United 
States official stationed-at Bering Sea and is 
70, but those facts, didjriot dult his romance. 


owner of a ranch At St.+th« Feice Frank Deasr performed 
. The adjoining ranch Is the ceremony that made, then! Mr. 
by AlMs...who-;.Spends the and Mrs. "ty, C. Allis. Tfte^toatron 
rs at his,Pribilof! Islands of- of honor was the bride’s sister. Mrs. 
id the winters on. his Call- E.Holllngshcad. and another at the 
estate. ' : . • wedding was her brother. ^C. A- 

met. Friendship grew Into HcrtUI. «iio mine from Nfew--XdrX 


The most eventful, as well as the most harrowing, 
years I knew on the Pribilof Islands were the so- 
called Gay Nineties [referring to the pelagic sealing 
years of the 1890s].... The native Aleuts called 
[Allis] Tyone [toion], beloved boss. 53 


I recall a pretty little girl who came to the islands as 
the bride of our newly-appointed superintendent; 
and even now, I mentally take off my hat to her. 

The Coast Guard cutter bringing the new boss and 
his wife arrived one dreary, drizzling day. Since the 
sea is too rough for the maintenance of a wharf on 
St. Paul, the cutter had to anchor about two miles 
offshore to discharge its freight and passengers onto 
skin boats and launches. I went out to find the ship 
wallowing to her scuppers in a heavy sea. 


My first glimpse of the bride revealed her clinging to 
the swaying length of a Jacob’s ladder that alternately 
swung her far out over the waves, then snapped her 
back again to crash against the side of the heaving 
ship. Below her, in an open skin boat, crouched the 
bridegroom, yelling to her to let go and drop when 
the tossing cockle-shell he was in rose on a swell to 
meet her. 


Watson Colt Allis and wife Edith, 1927. 
(Watson Colt Allis scrapbook, Greta 
Ericson Photographs, Archives, Alaska 
and Polar Regions Coll., Rasmuson 
Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 
p. 25) 


The little bride watched her chance, and presently 
dropped like a small sack of potatoes into the 
bottom of the skin boat. I expected hysterics; but 
when her husband helped her up, she was laughing. 
Already stowed in the boat, under a tarpaulin, were 
her household treasures—a tea table, a sewing 
machine, and—of all things—a crate of prize 
chickens, cackling to beat all get-out. The bride 
crawled under the tarp next to the chickens and after 
clucking soothingly to them, peeped out to make gay 
comments as the native paddlers worked our boat 
ashore through the breakers. The drizzle had turned 
to a downpour by this time. 


The moment she stepped to the land, where the 
Russian priest and the entire native population 
waited to greet her, things began to happen. She was 
the kind of girl who cannot rest until everyone and everything about her is comfortable. 
The first to claim her shocked attention were our veteran Pribilof hens, every one of which 
had lost its comb and sundry other appendages during the previous freezing winter. We 
old-timers laughed at her idea of erecting special quarters, with electric light and heat, 
for all Pribilof poultry. But she insisted, so it was done. And the following winter, those 
pampered tenants of her ‘hen hotel’ amazed us by delivering enough eggs to supply the 
officers table all during the frozen months. 


A Romance At 70 
and 44 .... . 

And ; yesterday 
they-w ? fe married 
At.the City Hill- 
40-year:6 m W. C, 
Allis, department 
tif eonutu'rw 
[resvntaUvc In tho 

Tar-away.•-pj-lblU 
tiff" Is lands In 
'Bering Sea and 
44-year-old Mrs.' 
t*ola Bond Hib¬ 
bard of New Fork 
.' ‘ ; 

Three y?ar* ago 
Mrs. Hlbb.urrt, 
came from . New 
York to'vlslt'fher ’ 
mother. Mrs. C., 


\\ hen she found there were no seats in the Russian church, and that women and children 
had to kneel on the cold, damp floor throughout the two-hour service, she urged that her 


136 

























Biographies A ♦ Allis - Andrews 


husband carpet the church. The old priest, aghast, explained that such a thing was never, 
never done! But in the end, the church was carpeted. 

The native funerals—and there were many that year—filled her with horror. In accordance 
with an old custom, the open coffin was placed at the church door, and every native on 
the island filed past and pressed a kiss on the face of the departed. The little bride tried to 
dissuade them from this unsanitary practice. Failing, she instituted a reform by having the 
priest bless a bolt of white, sterilized ribbon. One end of this was then placed across the 
face of the deceased and, after each kiss, she herself rolled the ribbon up a few inches, thus 
presenting an aseptic spot for the lips of the next mourner. 54 

Watson Colt Allis’ activities were occasionally transcribed in the Agent Logs. For 
example: 

Mr. Allis and four men put in an arrangement for launching the bidarra [sic]. This [is] a 
great improvement over the crude method in vogue heretofore of dragging them over the 
sand, and will lessen greatly the labor of these men. Alex Merculief and Jacob Kochooten 
connected a waste pipe arrangement to the stove in the bath room. The remainder of the 
men began the creation of the cemetery fence. Mr. Allis kindly loaning them a team for the 
purpose of transporting the material from Point Warehouse to the cemetery. 55 


Andrews, Roy Chapman ( 1884 - 1960 ) 

Assistant Curator of Mammalogy, American Museum of Natural History 
Cinematographer, August 1913 

Genealogy 

Roy Chapman Andrews was born on January 26, 1884, at Beloit, Wisconsin, the son 
of wholesale druggist Charles Ezra Andrews and Cora May (Chapman) Andrews. Roy 
C. Andrews was married on October 7, 1914, at Ossining, New York, to Yvette Borup, 
daughter of Henry Dana Borup and Mary Watson Brandreth Andrews. The marriage of 
Roy and Yvette ended in divorce in 1931, at Paris, France. Andrews was married a second 
time to Wilheimina Anderson Christmas on February 21, 1935, in Manhattan, New York. 
Mrs. Christmas was the widow of Manhattan stockbroker Franklin B. Christmas, and the 
daughter of Chattanooga, Tennessee, surgeon William E. Anderson and Lottie Dewees 
Anderson. Roy Chapman Andrews died in Carmel, California, on March 11, I960. 56 


Biographical Sketch 

Roy Andrews’ true-adventure story, Under a Lucky Star, is a vibrant tale about his life as 
an explorer and naturalist, as he discovered and created collections of artifacts for the 
American Museum of Natural History. 

From the time that I can remember anything I always intended to be an explorer, to work 
in a natural history museum, and to live out of doors. Actually, I never had any choice of a 
profession. I wanted to be an explorer and naturalist so passionately that anything else as 
a life work just never entered my mind. Of course, I didn’t know how I was going to do it, 
but I never let ways and means clutter my youthful dreams. I have often said that if I had 
inherited ten million dollars at birth I should have lived exactly the kind of life I have lived 
with no inheritance at all. A lot of money probably wouldn’t have been good for me, but I 
believe that even independent wealth couldn’t have switched me off from exploration. The 


137 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


only difference would have been that I would have financed my own expedition instead of 
getting other people to pay the bills. ’ 

Andrews graduated from Beloit College, Beloit, Wisconsin, in 1906. He financed his 
college education with his taxidermy skills, which were self-taught “by means of William T. 
Hornaday’s book, Taxidermy and Home Decoration.” 58 Shortly after graduation Andrews 
embarked upon his life’s career as an explorer (chronicled in his book in the third person): 

That summer he began a thirty-five year association with the American Museum of Natural 
History. Arriving in New York City with only thirty dollars, he went to the museum and 
asked the director, Hermon C. Bumpus, for a job, expressing his willingness to scrub 
floors, if necessary. When Bumpus observed that college graduates should not scrub floors, 
Andrews replied “not just any floors, but Museum floors are different. 59 

He was hired as a general assistant in the Department of Preparation, where he mixed 
clay and helped set up exhibits. 

Endowed with enormous energy and ability, Andrews soon established a reputation in the 
field of cetaceans. Before the age of thirty, he was a leading authority on whales. One of his 
first assignments had been to obtain the skeleton of a whale washed up on Long Island. He 
had to work waist-deep in freezing sea water to retrieve the remains. Soon afterward, he 
helped overcome problems in the construction of the life-size model of a giant blue whale, 
one of the museum’s most popular exhibits. He was appointed assistant in mammalogy in 
1909 and assistant curator of the department of mammals in 1918. 

Andrews sailed on expeditions to the Pacific Ocean, studying whales and the whaling 
industry. The museum sent him to British Columbia and Alaska in 1908, and in 1909-10 
he was its representative aboard the U.S.S. Albatross on a voyage to the Dutch East Indies, 

Borneo, and the Celebes. In 1911-12 Andrews studied whales off Korea and Japan, sending 
back [to the Museum] enough specimens of the California gray whale, which had been 
believed extinct. After returning to the United States, he received the M.S. from Columbia 
University in 1913, with a thesis on whales. 

Thriving on adventure, Andrews stalked whales, dissected them, sketched them, and 
recorded their characteristics. He persisted despite almost constant torment from 
seasickness and a number of harrowing experiences. Shipwrecked on a Pacific island, 
he had to eat monkeys to survive. On the deck of a whaler, he escaped death by inches 
when the carcass of a whale slipped from a tackle, crushing the man standing beside him. 
Throughout his life he made light of the perils of exploration, claiming that he found it 
more dangerous to live in a modern city than in the wild. 60 

Andrews’ life of scientific work ended in New York City at the American Museum of 
Natural History. At the museum, he served as vice director in 1931-34, and then director 
in 1935-42. In the spring of 1937 he bought Pondwood Farm in Colebrook, Connecticut, 
to which he and his wife retired in 1942. In retirement, he continued to write about his 
findings as an explorer. The Roy Chapman Andrews journals and papers, along with his 
publications, are located at the American Museum of Natural History, New York. 61 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Roy C. Andrews, Assistant Curator of Mammalogy at the American Museum of Natural 
History (AMNH), traveled at the behest of the Commissioner of Fisheries, Dr. Hugh M. 
Smith, to take motion pictures of fur seals. During 1913, he traveled to St. Paul Island 
aboard the yacht Adventuress owned by John Borden, who was on his way to the Arctic 
to collect a bowhead whale for the AMNH collection. Andrews claimed his work rep- 


138 





Biographies A ♦ Andrews - Arkhimandritov 


resented the first motion pictures to be taken at the Pribilofs. 62 The Agent’s Log tracked 
Andrews’ motion picture undertakings, documenting that he had filmed Gorbatch and 
Reef rookeries. Thanks to some Aleut men, he also filmed the driving, killing, and skin¬ 
ning of bachelor seals ( lakuq ), the use of a baidara ( nidiliq ), and reindeer ( itgayaq ), which 
they had herded to the village. We have been unable to determine the whereabouts of 
Andrews’ film archives, if in fact they still exist. 


Arkhimandritov, Ilarion Ivanovich ( 1819 - 1872 ) 

Native of St. George Island 

Assistant Navigator, Russian-American Company 
Captain, Hutchinson, Kohl & Company 


Genealogy 

Ilarion Arkhimandritov 63 was born November 2, 1819, on St. George Island, Alaska, to 
Ioann (Ivan) Arkhimandritov, a Russian, and his Aleut wife, Natalia. Ilarion married an 
American woman, Caroline Otis Thompson Peters, in a civil ceremony at San Francisco 
in November 1863. Their marriage was consecrated by the Orthodox Church in Sitka. 64 

Biographical Sketch 

Ilarion Arkhimandritov became one of the first students educated in the new Orthodox 
school for Aleuts opened by Father Ioann Veniaminov in August 1827. By September 
1831, Arkhimandritov began his seafaring years on a voyage to California aboard the 
sloop Zarembo. On November 20, 1832, he sailed from Sitka on the transport Amerika, 
and after an eight-month voyage, arrived at the Port of St. Petersburg, Russia, where he 
enrolled in the School of Merchant Seafaring. 

He had the civil status of a Creole, equivalent in the Russian ranked society to a townsman 
or burgher. The Russian government assigned this status to persons of Alaskan birth 
who claimed at least one Russian ancestor or who occupied positions of responsibility in 
management. In 1837, upon completing a three-and-a-half year course with the rank of 
assistant navigator, he returned to Sitka on the Russian American Company ship Nikolai 
(Berens), and in 1840, began service with the company at a salary of 1,000 rubles a year. 65 

While in the service of the Russian-American Company, Illarion Arkhimandritov 
collected artifacts and made charts of the districts of Kodiak and Sitka. 

On 27 February 1860, Arkhimandritov left Sitka for Woody Island with the bark Kodiak, 
and a cargo of construction timber for a new ice house. He took on a cargo of 356 tons 
of ice, but on 30 March struck an underwater rock off Spruce Island. All personnel were 
saved, but the vessel and everything on board were lost. The vessel drifted to Spruce Island 
and sank directly in front of the chapel with just one mast above water and a yard that 
made it look like a cross. 66 

In 1864, on a trip to St. Paul and St. George islands to deliver supplies from Unalaska 
and to pick up furs, he was asked “to chart the coastal features and make soundings for a 
new atlas of the colonies to be published by the Russian-American Company.” 67 


139 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

The U.S. purchase of Russian America brought some changes for Arkhimandritov, who 
settled in San Francisco for a short period in 1867. He shared his charts and nautical infor¬ 
mation with George Davidson, a surveyor for U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, and other 
early American explorers and map makers. In 1868, he went to work with Hutchinson, 
Kohl & Company. 

In 1868, the inhabitants of St. George, St. Paul, and Unalaska Islands requested him to 
be their protector before the American government in cases of violence, offenses, and 
the ruin of their rookeries of sea animals by foreigners of different nations. His work for 
Hutchinson, Kohl & Company drew criticism from Agapius Honcharenko’s Alaska Herald, 
a strident critic of all activities of that firm and its heir, the Alaska Commercial Company. 68 

Historian Harold F. Taggart in his published review, “Sealing on St. George Island, 1868,” 
presented another side of Ilarion Arkhimandritov (which he spelled “Archimanditoff”). 
In Taggart’s account, Captain Arkhimandritov had charge of the Hutchinson, Kohl & 
Company interests on the Pribilofs in 1868, and worked effectively with other competi¬ 
tors, such as Taylor and Bendel, and Parrott & Company. George R. Adams, who rep¬ 
resented Parrott & Company interests at the time, referred to Captain Arkhimandritov 
as “really not a bad fellow as Russians with a little authority go.” Conversely, naturalist 
William H. Dali, who briefly visited St. George Island in 1868, apparently encountered 
Arkhimandritov and referred to him as “an unscrupulous fellow, who terrified the na¬ 
tives.” 69 

Armstrong, John (b. 1844 ) 

Agent, Alaska Commercial Company, St. Paul Island, 1877-1886 
Superintendent, Inglenook Vineyard and Wine Cellars 

Genealogy 

John Armstrong, son of Joseph Armstrong, was born in Scotland during the year 1844. 
The Armstrong family moved to Toronto, Canada, when John Armstrong was a year old. 
In 1872, John Armstrong married Jane Yates, who was born in Maine in October 1857. 
John and Jane Armstrong had three children: Jeannette, John, and Joseph. 70 

Biographical Sketch 

John Armstrong was trained as an engineer and worked at the Marine Engine Works in 
Dundas, near Hamilton, Canada. In 1860, just before the Civil War, he moved to Chicago. 
He worked for a short while on railroads running out of Chicago before being called upon 
for active service in the war. Although he did not carry a musket, Armstrong’s duties 
were far more onerous and often perilous. He served in the Engineering Department 
under General George H. Thomas, who was responsible for transporting Union troops 
in Tennessee and adjoining parts. After the war Armstrong went to the West Coast and 
for a time was in Ben Holladay’s employment running steamers. In 1868, he was made 
chief engineer of the Fidelity, the first American steamer to go to Alaska for the Alaska 


140 








Biographies A ♦ Arkhimandritov - Artomanoff 


Commercial Company. He remained in this post until 1877, when he was sent to Saint 
Paul Island as the resident agent, and where he served until the fall of 1886. 

In 1891, John Armstrong moved to San Francisco for the winter. Captain Gustave 
Niebaum induced Armstrong to stay and apply himself to the wine business. He became 
the viticulturist of the Rutherford Winery and superintendent of the Inglenook Vineyard 
and Wine Cellars, the magnificent property of Captain Niebaum (see Nybom biography), 
at Rutherford, California . 71 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

John Armstrong deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration on May 10, 1892, before Notary 
Public Clement Bennett at San Francisco, California: 

I am 50 years old, and reside in San Francisco. I was employed in Alaska service in 
connection with the seal fisheries from 1868 to 1886, inclusive. During the first eight years 
of the time I was chief engineer of the steamer plying between San Francisco and the seal 
islands and other Alaska ports, and from 1877 to 1886 inclusive, as agent of the Alaska 
Commercial Company, living almost constantly for the whole ten years upon St. Paul 
Island. I always assisted in the seal-killing, and, in common with all other employees on the 
islands, made the seals my study and care. 72 


Artomanoff, Kerrick ( 1826 - 1900 ) 

Aleut Chief, St. Paul Island, 1870-1877 
Genealogy 

Kerrick (also spelled Kereck) Artomanoff was born at Northeast Point, St. Paul Island, 
Alaska, in 1826. Kerrick was married at least twice, once to Olga (maiden name un¬ 
known ) 73 and subsequently to Alexandra (maiden name unknown ). 74 According to the 
Pribilof census records for January 1, 1873, Kerrick had at least four children, two on St. 
Paul Island (son Gaerman aged 26 and daughter Malaina aged 20) and two daughters on 
St. George Island (Vasselisse aged 14 and Kahseenia [Uxenia] aged 5 ). 75 The mother(s) of 
Kerrick Artomanoff’s children is uncertain. “Kerrick Artomanoff age 75 died of La grippe 
[flu] at an early hour this morning,” wrote Agent James Judge in the Agent’s Log on June 
20, 1900. 

Biographical Sketch 

Kerrick Artomanoff “was probably the oldest person on the Island and until quite re¬ 
cently enjoyed good health. He was first chief for a number of years and was considered 
a sort of land-mark and bureau of information by most of the white men who visited the 
Island during the last quarter of a century .” 6 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Kerrick Artomanoff deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration on June 8 , 1892, before 
Treasury Agent-in-Charge William H. Williams at St. Paul Island, Alaska: 


141 








Puibilof Islands: The People 


I am a native Aleut, and reside on St. Paul, Pribilof Group, Alaska; 1 was born at Northeast 
Point, on St. Paul Island (1826) and am 67 years of age. I have worked on the sealing 
grounds for the last fifty years and am well acquainted with the methods adopted by the 
Russian and American Governments in taking of fur seal skins and in protecting and 
preserving the herds on the island. In 1870, when the Alaska Commercial Company 
obtained the lease of the Islands, I was made Chief, and held the position for seventeen 
years. It was my duty as Chief to take charge of and conduct the drives with my people 
from the hauling to the killing grounds. 

The methods used by the Alaska Commercial Company and the American Government 
for the care and preservation of the seal were much better than those used by the Russian 
Government. In old Russian time we used to drive seals from Northeast Point to the village, 
a distance of nearly 13 miles, and we used to drive 5 or 6 miles from other hauling grounds; 
but when the Americans got the Islands they soon after shortend [sic] all the drives to less 
than 3 miles. 

Our people like the meat of seal, and we eat no other meat so long as we can get it. 

The pup seals are our chicken meat, and we used to be allowed to kill 3,000 or 4,000 male 
pups every year in November, but the Government agent forbade us to kill any in 1891 ... 
[because the pups were considered necessary to sustain the herd in light of the recently 
recognized diminution of the herd size]; but we do not like any other meat as well as pup- 
seal meat. We understand the danger there is in the seals being all killed off and that we will 
have no way of earning our living. 78 


1 Harpur Allen Gosnell, Before the Mast in the Clippers: Composed in Large Part of the Diaries of 
Charles A. Abbey Kept While at Sea in the Years 1856 to 1860. (NY: Derrydale, 1937), 19. 

2 The Senate confirmed the nomination of First Lt. Charles A. Abbey to Captain in the Revenue 
Marine Service on Apr. 23, 1872. Abbey assumed the position on Apr. 26, “Washington,” New York 
Times, Apr. 23, 1872, 1; U.S. Revenue Cutter Service Officers Register, July 1, 1892, http://bluejacket. 
com/usrcs_officers_1892 (accessed Nov. 2, 2005); and Floyd Hoskin Ancestors (contact Stephen 
Hoskin, Ancestry.com). 

3 Gosnell, Before the Mast, 20. 

4 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, convened at Paris 
under the Treaty between the United States of America and Great Britain, concluded at Washington 
February 29, 1892, for the determination of questions between the two governments concerning the 
jurisdictional rights of the United States in the waters of Bering Sea, vol. 3 (Washington, DC: GPO, 
1895), 185-7. 

5 “Schwatka’s Good Work,” New York Times, Nov. 3, 1886, 2; and "Heavy Damages Wanted,” New York 
Times, June 4, 1887, 5. 

6 “Schwatka’s Good Work,” New York Times, Nov. 3, 1886, 2 

7 Guide to the Bristow Adams Papers, 1853-1970, Coll. 3205, Division of Rare and Manuscript 
Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY; and Association for Communication Excellence 
in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Life and Human Sciences (ACE), Bristow Adams ACE 
President, 1918-1919, http://www.aceweb.org/leadersh/adams.html (accessed Apr. 3, 2006). 

8 This and other Bristow Adams illustrations are found in David Starr Jordan and George Archibald 
Clark, The History, Condition, and Needs of the Herd of Fur Seal Resorting to the Pribilof Islands, 
in David Starr Jordan, ed., The Fur Seals and Fur-Seal Islands of the North Pacific Ocean, pt. 1, 
(Washington, DC: GPO, 1898). 

9 U.S. Department of State, Emergency Passport Applications Issued Abroad, 1877-1907. NARA, 
microfilm publication M1834, RG 59, Passport no. 1399, issued Jan. 17, 1903; U.S. Census 1900, 
Oakland, Alameda County, California, NARA roll T623, no. 82, page 6A, enumeration district 363; 
Jim Briggs, “Blue Hill Maine Founding Families,” http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com (accessed Aug. 

21, 2009); Richard A. Pierce, Russian America, A Biographical Dictionary (Kingston, ON: Limestone 


142 





Biographies A ♦ Artomanoff 


Press, 1990), 2; and “Death with Funeral Announcements,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 26, 1933. Pierce, 
Russian America, listed George Russell Adams’ death year as 1938; this apparent typographical error 
also carried to Pierce’s edited book, Life on the Yukon, 1865-1867, by George R. Adams (Kingston, 
ON: Limestone Press, 1982). 

10 Harold F. Taggart, “Sealing on St. George Island, 1868,” The Pacific Historical Review 28, no. 4 (1959), 
355; and William H. Dali, Alaska and Its Resources (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1870), 355, which 
referred to it as the Western Union Telegraph Expedition. 

11 Officially no commercial sealing was allowed during 1869, but unofficially at least as many as 87,000 
fur seals were killed under the guise of a subsistence harvest. Alaska Commercial Co. executive 
Hayward M. Hutchinson stated in his testimony before a congressional committee in 1876 that 
87,000 sealskins were taken in 1869. Later during the same congressional investigation, he changed 
the number without clarifying to 69,000 sealskins taken. U.S. Congress, House, Alaska Commercial 
Company, 44th Cong., 1st sess., 1876, H. Rep. 623, 133-4. 

12 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 157. 

13 Taggart, “Sealing on St. George, 1868” and/or Agent Adams probably meant Father Innokenty 
Shaiashnikoff, who must have coincidentally been on the island at that time, for in 1868, neither St. 
George nor St. Paul had a resident priest. Father Shaiashnikoff served all the Aleutians as well as the 
Pribilofs from his principal residence in Unalaska. 

14 Taggart, “Sealing on St. George, 1868,” 355. 

15 Ibid., 356. 

16 Ibid., 355, in a footnote stating that Agent Adams’ writing is appended to Adams’ story about his 
role on the Western Union Telegraph Expedition, available on microfilm from the Bancroft Library, 
Berkeley, California. 

17 Quass is variously spelled “quas,” “qvass,” and “kvass.” “Quass is a sour beverage used all over Russia, 
and is made from grain without any sugar at all. It is made from brewing rye to the point of oxyda- 
tion [sic], and is entirely a sour beverage,” testimony of S. M. Buynitsky in U.S. Dept, of Commerce 
and Labor, U.S. Congress, House, “Report from the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries 
of the House of Representatives,” 50th Cong., 2nd sess., in U.S. Dept, of Commerce and Labor, 
Alaskan Seal Fisheries, Compilation of Documents and Other Printed Matter Relating Thereto, vol. 3 
(Washington, DC: GPO, 1906), 8. 

18 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1896, 419-28. The log contains a lengthy discussion about quass brewing 
activities on the island. 

19 Ibid., 429. 

20 Ibid., 432. 

21 A circular from the Russian Benevolent Society of San Francisco, May 20, 1891, informed parishio¬ 
ners that Bishop Valdimir (sic), who had taken offerings from their churches, had squandered the 
money and no longer had jurisdiction in the bishopric of Alaska. "Brethren: The committee of the 
Russian Benevolent Society of San Francisco hereby informs you that the funds of your churches, 
invested in shares and obligations of Russian railways, and intrusted (sic) to the care of the head of 
the bishopric, have been sold by Bishop Valdimir, and the money lavishly dissipated for purposes 
that have nothing in common with the interests of the church and orthodox religion.” U.S. Congress, 
House, “Report on the Seal Islands of Alaska,” in Seal and Salmon Fisheries and General Resources of 
Alaska, 55th Congress, 1st sess., H. Doc. no. 92, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1898), 291. 

22 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1896, 439-40. 

23 Ibid., 452-3. 

24 Ibid., 460. 

25 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 95. 

26 WWI draft registration card, Seattle, WA, June 5, 1917. 

27 WWI draft registration card, Seattle, WA, June 5, 1917; U.S. Census 1930, Bloom Township, Cook 
County, IL; and Social Security Admin., SSDI. 

28 “Traveling Culture: Circuit Chautauqua in the Twentieth Century,” Redpath Chautauqua Collection, 
Library of Congress, http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/traveling-culture/chaul/img/albrecht/ or http://digi- 
tal.lib.uiowa.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/tc&CISOPTR=23769&REC= 1 (accessed June 
30, 2009). 

29 Ibid. 

30 Wilfred H. Osgood, “New habitat group shows seals at Uncle Sam’s Fur Farm in Alaska,” Field 


143 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


Museum News 12, no. 1 (1941): 1-2. 

31 Marriage 1885, vol. 361, 275, and 1865, vol. 180, 170, Massachusetts Vital Records, 1841-1910; 
Flimna 457955, http://www.Familysearch.org; and U.S. Census 1910. 

32 A. B. Alexander field journal, 1892-1904, Smithsonian Institution Archives, LC # SIA RU 007223; 
U.S. Census 1870 and 1880; U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 352 and 356; and “Planned to 
Raise Battleship Maine,” Lynn Daily Evening Item, Apr. 5, 1911, 4. 

33 The location of the deposition may have been Port Townsend, WA, rather than Fort Townsend as 
stated in U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 356. 

34 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 352 and 356. 

35 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 8, 163 (British case; the reader is advised that the page 
numbers given in the GPO vol. 8 table of contents are the page numbers in the publication of the 
British case publication, and therefore do not correspond to the page numbers in the upper left and 
right of the body of text paginated by the GPO. In other words, page 163 is the page number of the 
GPO volume cited, but in the table of contents, GPO refers to page 187 of the British case); and U.S. 
Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 355 (U.S. case). 

36 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 352-6. 

37 “In Memoriam” (Merle E. Alger Obituary), Spirit of Jefferson Farmer’s Advocate, Charles Town, WV, 
1975, 2; U.S. Census 1910, Springfield, Page Co., Virginia, 15B; U.S. Census 1920, Ranson, Jefferson 
Co., WV, 4A; U.S. Census 1920, Charles Town, Jefferson Co., WV, 8B; Social Security Admin., SSDI, 
West Virginia; “Mrs. Rebecca Campbell Dies,” The Frederick Post, Frederick, MD, Mar. 25, 1931, 

1; "Death, Mrs. George E. Fowler,” The Post, Frederick, MD, Nov. 21, 1973, A-5; “Our Family Tree 
Carters and Snyders,” Ancestry World Tree, Ancestry.com; and “Hubert Abraham Alger,” http:// 
trees, ancestry.com/owt/person. aspx?pid=4430624. 

38 Dr. Douglas Allara, Charles Town, WV, as told to author Betty A. Lindsay in a telephone interview, 
June 22, 2008. 

39 “Jefferson JP Resigns After 48 Years,” The Morning Herald, Tri-State News, Hagerstown, MD, June 
20, 1975, 13. 

40 John W. Lipke, Report for St. Paul Island for year ending Mar. 31, 1939, correspondence to 
Commissioner, U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, Washington, DC, Apr. 2, 1939, Fur-Seal Archives, NMML 
Library, Seattle, WA; and St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, May 12 and May 14, 1935. 

41 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, June 3, July 13, and Aug. 19, 1935. 

42 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, Jan.-Dec., 1937; and Ward T. Bower, Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal 
Industries in 1937, Bureau of Fisheries, Admin. Rep. 31 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1938), 128. 

43 The 1935 Agent’s Log stated that the Japanese vessel Hokuho Maru was a patrol boat, and it stayed 
about the island July 10-17. On July 9, 1936, the agent characterized the vessel Hokuyo Maru (note 
spelling difference of the vessel between 1935 and 1936) as a training ship. On July 8, 1937, the 
Hokuyo Maru was characterized as a training ship "of the Japanese Imperial Government Fisheries 
Institute Tokyo, Japan.” Captain J. Nakakawa (note the difference in spelling of the captain’s surname 
between 1936 and 1937) and crew landed. They visited “Zapadni Rookery and points of interest 
about the village. The vessel departed that day for Dutch Harbor.” Dr. Douglas Allara, Charles Town, 
WV, as told to author Betty A. Lindsay in a telephone interview, June 22, 2008. 

44 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, Nov. 2, 1937. 

45 WWI draft registration card #2525, Washington, DC; Marriage notice, Washington Post, Sept. 29, 
1920; Social Security Admin., SSDI; and “Obituary, Mrs. Gregory J. Sheffield,” Chicago Tribune, Apr. 
14, 1968. The Washington Post news article was in error; other children had been born to white 
personnel prior to 1922 on St. Paul Island. Two of the first white children born were a son to Mr. 
and Mrs. Joseph Meyers on May 7, 1872, at St. George Island, and a son, Laurence Collins, born to 
Mrs. and Mr. Edward G. Collins, on Sept. 10, 1914. Mr. Myer worked for the Alaska Commercial 
Company. Mr. Collins worked as a Navy radio electrician at the island’s radio station. 

46 "Deaths Reported,” Washington Post, Mar. 10, 1931. 

47 Obituary, "Mrs. Sheffield, Child Author, Painter Dies,” Chicago Tribune, Apr. 15, 1968. 

48 U.S. Census 1900, New Brunswick, NJ; Henry D. Alter, “Notes on the Distribution of the More 
Common Bivalves of Beaufort, N.C.,” Science 36 (Aug. 2, 1912), 157-8; St. George Island Agent’s Log 
1917-19; and St. Paul Island Agents’ Log 1920-23. 

49 Obituary, “Mrs. Sheffield, Child Author, Painter Dies,” Chicago Tribune, Apr. 15, 1968. 

50 Barrett Willoughby, “Watson Colt Is Summoned, Death Claims Retired Pribilof Island Official,” St. 


144 



Biographies A 


Helena Star, Apr. 10, 1942. 

51 Ibid. 

52 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 97. 

53 Barrett Willoughby, Alaska Holiday (Boston: Little Brown, 1940), 199-201. 

54 Ibid., 222-4. Although Allis does not mention her name, the time period and circumstances of the 
event narrows it down to the wife of Agent Christoffers or of Agent Edward C. Johnston. 

55 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, May 20, 1901, 83. 

56 John Whiteclay Chambers II, “Andrews, Roy Chapman,” in Dictionary of American Biography, 
Supplement Six 1956-1960, ed. John A. Garraty (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1980), 17-9; 
"Miss Yvette Borup A Bride,” New York Times, Oct. 8, 1914, 11; Frederick M. Ward, Andrew Warde 
and His Descendants 1597-1910 (New York: A. T. De La Mare, 1923), 439; “Mrs. Christmas to Wed 
Explorer,” New York Times, Feb. 15, 1935, 16; “Andrews Wedding Surprises Friends,” New York Times, 
Feb. 23, 1935, 16; John Trotwood Moore, Tennessee, The Volunteer State, 1769-1923 (Chicago, IL: 

S. J. Clarke, 1923), vol. 2, 745-6; and “Andrews Dies at 76; Famed Naturalist, Once Museum Head,” 
Syracuse Herald Journal, Mar. 12, 1960, 5. 

57 Roy Chapman Andrews, Under a Lucky Star (New York: Viking Press, 1943), 13-4. 

58 Ibid., 14. 

59 Ibid., 22. 

60 Chambers II, “Andrews, Roy Chapman,” 17-8. 

61 Ibid., and Andrews, Under a Lucky Star, 264-5. 

62 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, Aug. 19-25, 1913; and Andrews, Under a Lucky Star, 111 and 113. Walter 
I. Lembkey in his St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, June 19, 1911, wrote that a Mr. A. C. Bent of Taunton, 
MA, debarked from the Polar Bear as it was enroute from Unalaska to Nome. Mr. Bent “asked per¬ 
mission ... to photograph and otherwise study seals, and to take moving pictures of the latter as well 
as of other objects of interest on shore ... I refused to allow them to photograph.” On July 7, 1911, 
Lembkey wrote that Bent again came ashore to beg permission to photograph, and again he was 
refused, but he was allowed to photograph birds on Walrus Island. 

63 U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925, Slavian [Ilarion] Archimandritoff, Ancestry.com (accessed 
July 18, 2009); and Pierce, Russian America, 10. 

64 Ibid., 10; U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925, Slavian [Ilarion] Archimandritoff, Ancestry.com 
(accessed July 18, 2009); and Maria Jarlsdotter Enckell, “Commonly Known Finnish and Baltic 
Names Found in the Index to Baptisms, Marriages and Deaths in the Archives of the Russian 
Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in Alaska 1816-1866,” part of the Godenhjelm Project of the Sitka 
Lutheran Church, 2004, 77 and 556. http://www.genealogia.fi/emi/art/article411e.htm (accessed July 
18, 2009). Carolina (Karolina) Otis Thompson Peters, who married Ilarion Arkhimandritov Nov. 13, 
1863, in Sitka, may have been the daughter of Johan Johansson Peters from Vipuri, Finland. 

65 Pierce, Russian America, 10-11. 

66 Ibid., 11. Also “Kodiak, Alaska, July 25, 2003: A team of shipwreck researchers led by Dr. Bradley 
Stevens, NMFS, has located wreckage believed to be the remains of the Russian barkentine Kadiak 
in Monk’s Lagoon near Spruce Island, off Kodiak Island, Alaska,” Sean Weems, NOAA Scientific/ 
Exploration Dive on Kodiak, http://www.seanweems.com/index (accessed Aug. 25, 2005); and 
Taggart, “Sealing at St. George Island, 1868,” 355, cited in his biographical sketch of George R. 
Adams, one of Adams’ favorite stories told by Illarion Arkhimandritov, “he knew the intricate 
harbor of Kodiak better than any other captain having lost a ship on every rock in it.” 

67 Pierce, Russian America, 11. 

68 Ibid. 

69 Taggart, “Sealing on St. George Island, 1868,” 355, cited as the source for Dali’s statement, 
“Photostatic copy of‘Statement of William H. Dali in reference to the Fur-Seal Islands of Alaska,’ 
made to the Secretary of Treasury, Feb. 25, 1870, in Alaska File of the Interior Section of National 
Archives, Washington.” 

70 Lewis Publishing Company, Memorial & Biographical History of Northern California (Chicago: 
Lewis, 1891), 431-2; and U.S. Census 1900. Armstrong’s birth date in the U.S. Census 1900 is 1844, 
whereas his birth date is given by Lewis, p. 431, as 1841. 

71 Ibid., 431-2; and U.S. Census 1900. 

72 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 1. 

73 Betty A. Lindsay and John A. Lindsay, Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Genealogy and Census, NOAA Tech. 


145 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


Memo. NOS ORR 18 (2009), 99 and 109. 

74 Ibid., 240. 

75 Ibid., 89, 99, and 109. The various spellings of several of the children’s names can be seen during 
these different censuses. For unknown reasons in the 1875 census, the name Uxenia appears to 
replace the name Kahseenia appearing in the St. Paul Censuses of 1870, 1873, and 1824. 

76 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1900, 460. 

77 Ibid., Sept. 24, 1875, 352: “A deputation of the natives called upon Asst. Treas. Agent Marston, and 
expressed a desire to have the 1st Chief Bootrin [sic] displaced, and the 2nd chief Artimonoff [sic] 
appointed in his stead.” See George Marston biography for additional comments on Artomanoff. 

78 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 99-101. 



Seven men and one boy. Three men are holding rifles and one man is holding an oar. (Washington State 
Historical Society. Photo: Dr. Charles A. Lutz. Henry Wood Elliott Coll., 087.37.doc/3.OLE.) 


146 











B 


Baden-Powell, Sir George (1848-1898) 

Member, British Commission for the Behring Sea Fisheries Dispute, 1891 
Member, Joint Behring Sea Commission, 1892 
Advisor, International Fur-Seal Arbitration, 1893 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

A Member of Parliament for the Kirkdale Division of Liverpool, England, Sir George 
Baden-Powell served on the British Commission for the Bering Sea Fisheries Dispute in 
1891, on the Joint Commission in Washington, D.C., in 1892, and as an advisor to the 

I British Case in the 1893 Fur-Seal Arbitration Hearings before an International Tribunal at 
Paris, France. He spent July and August 1891 with the Canadian-appointed Commissioner 
Dr. George Mercer Dawson (1849-1901) “on board a man-of-war cruising in the Bering 
Sea, visiting the Pribilof Islands and all the principal stations frequented by sealers.” 1 

i 

Baltzo, Charles Howard ( 1913-2003) 

Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, Pribilof Islands 
Fur-Seal Program, 1960-1968 

Genealogy 

Charles Howard Baltzo was born on June 19, 1913, in Seattle, Washington, to Charles 
Edward Baltzo and Gertrude (Martin) Baltzo. Charles Baltzo married Ann P. Hammer on 
September 4, 1937. Charles and Ann Baltzo had two children: Stanley “Stan” Arthur and 
Dorothy Camille. 


147 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


Biographical Sketch 

In 1944, Charles Howard Baltzo moved his family 
to Alaska, where he worked on salmon research 
management for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
until he accepted a challenging assignment to the 
Pribilof Fur-Seal Program. 

As described in “A Family Summer at the 
Pribilofs,” in the November 1965 issue of Alaska 
Sportsman magazine, the family enjoyed St. 
George Island life. Son Stan had an exciting first 
day on the island. He and Walter Kashevarof, a 
local boy, clambered down the 1,000-foot cliff at 
High Bluffs equipped with a “ten-foot pole having 
a pair of flexible wooden slats tied to one end and 
protruding past the end of the pole. The two slats 
served as the fingers which gently grasped the be- 
speckled murre egg as it lay in its nest.” The boys 
managed to collect some murre eggs without fall¬ 
ing into the sea. In October 1968, at the end of his 
Pribilof years, Howard and Ann retired to their homestead near Wasilla, Alaska. Howard 
Baltzo died on May 31, 2003. 2 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

In January 1960, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, ap¬ 
pointed Charles Howard Baltzo to direct the transition (or “phase-out,” as it is commonly 
called) from federal administration to self-rule by the Pribilof Native communities. 

Mr. Baltzo’s primary mandate was to improve the overall living conditions of the Pribilof 
people in light of impending program changes. The changes Mr. Baltzo made to the 
program are set forth in his May 1963 report entitled "Program for Administration of the 
Pribilof Island Federal Reservation Embracing Management of the Fur Seal Resources 
and Development of the Resident Aleut Inhabitants.” As a result of Mr. Baltzo’s work, 
the Federal Civil Service wage scale was introduced in 1962, for all people on the Islands 
working for the Federal Government. With this change, Pribilovian wages were brought 
into parity with the rest of the Federal workforce. In turn, in kind compensation such 
as free rent and food were substantially reduced, being provided only to those with 
insufficient wages to cover necessities. The Federal Government did, however, continue to 
maintain and administer the stores, laundries, houses, streets, and all public buildings and 
to fund educational and medical services for all Pribilovians on both Islands. To preserve 
Federal jobs, Pribilovian residents continued to be employed in these services. 3 

Later, Baltzo recounted his view of the situation. 

Nothing existed in writing until the emancipation was well along, but my job was clearly to 
make the natives independent and bring them into the mainstream. 4 

Howard Baltzo “described the seal program as a three-headed one, involving 1) man¬ 
agement of the fur-seal program from the standpoint of luxury furs; 2) scientific research 



Charles Howard Baltzo, November 16, 
1960. (NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, 
Anchorage, Alaska. Photo: News Tribune 
to Liberal Engraving Co. RG 22, U.S. Fish 
and Wildlife Service, 1870-1969, box 61 
of 64, RG 22-9S-ADMC-2208.) 


148 






Biographies B ♦ Baltzo 


on seals to understand them better; and 3) the administration of two villages containing 
the 650 Aleut natives who harvest pelts on the Pribilofs.” 5 

While some former agents encouraged improvement in conditions for the Aleuts, 
Washington lacked the will. Now with the political will for change, Baltzo’s administra¬ 
tion brought about numerous changes, such as the Federal Civil Service wage scale, the 
sale of alcoholic beverages, conversion of heating from coal to oil, a new source of do¬ 
mestic water supply, better fire protection, and a grade school system run by the Alaska 
Department of Education. The changes also brought about the end of free rent and food 
for all but the very needy, and increased unemployment. 

Also, beginning in January 1962, Baltzo submitted monthly reports to the Seattle 
office, thereby eliminating the requirement of maintaining an agent’s daily log that had 
been mandated since 1870. 6 

Then in 1964, the government reduced its role in oversight of the fur-seal harvest. As 
reported in the New York Times : 

“Always before we had a team of overseers and bosses to tell them [Aleuts] what to do,” said 
C. Howard Baltzo, Director of the Bureau’s Marine Mammal Resources Program, who has 
spent five summers on St. Paul directing the work. “This year is a milestone and the Aleuts 
are tremendously proud of their achievement.” 

Also in 1964, the U.S. Department of the Interior designated the Pribilof Islands Fur 
Seal Rookeries National Historic Landmark. Director Baltzo received the plaque (dated 
1964) in 1966 on behalf of the landmark and placed it on a boulder above Kitovi Rookery, 
St. Paul Island. 

In 1967, Baltzo provided guidance to the communities on implementation of the Fur- 
Seal Act of 1966. His term ended in October 1968. 



149 


Fur Seal Rookeries National 
Historic Landmark plaque, 1964. 























Pribilof Islands: The People 


Banks, Nathan ( 1868 - 1953 ) 

Entomologist, U.S. Fish Commission, 1897 
Member, Harriman Alaska Expedition, 1899 

Curator of Insects, Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, St. Paul and St. George 
Islands, 1914 


Genealogy 

Nathan Banks was born on April 13, 1868, at 
Roslyn, New York, to Daniel G. Banks and Maria 
(Hawxhurst) Banks. Nathan Banks married Mary 
A. LaGar on June 2, 1897, in New York, and 
the couple had three sons: Bryant, Gilbert, and 
Waldo; and five daughters: Ruth, Bessie, Nellie, 
Dorothy, and Elsie. Nathan Banks died on January 
24, 1953, at his Cambridge, Massachusetts home. 
He was eighty-four. 8 

Biographical Sketch 

Nathan Banks received his higher education at 
Cornell University, after which he worked for 
the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). At 
USDA in 1880, he began research on spider mites 
(Family Tetranychidae). 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Nathan Banks served with David Starr Jordan as 

Nathan A. Banks (USDA. U.S. National an entomologist while a member of the U.S. Fish 

Mite Collection History). 9 Commission in 1897, and as a member of the 

1899 Harriman Alaska Expedition. During his 
brief stints at the Pribilof Islands, he labored to identify insects and arachnids (mites) 
that were poorly known at the time. The Harriman Report described eighty species of 
insects on the Pribilof Islands, fifty-seven of which were new to science. 10 From 1900 to 
1916, Banks was assistant entomologist for the USDA, publishing extensively on spider 
mites and predator mites (Families Stigmaeidae and Cunaxidae). He is reported to have 
written the first comprehensive handbook on mites in English. The following year, he left 
government work to join the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, 
Massachusetts. Banks made a third research trip to St. Paul and St. George islands in 
1914, as Curator of Insects at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. His ef¬ 
forts resulted in the identification of new species of Trichopteran caddis flies (Family 
Limnephilidae), a Mecopteran scorpion fly (Family Panorpidae), and numerous mites 
(Class Arachnida). 11 



150 















Biographies B ♦ Banks - Barnes 


Barnes, Milton ( 1830 - 1895 ) 

Special Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. George Island, June-August 1891 
and St. Paul Island, August 1891-May 1892 
Lawyer, Politician, Secretary of State, Ohio, 1876-1881 

Genealogy 

Milton Barnes was born at Barnesville, Belmont 
County, Ohio, April 26, 1830, the son of Abel 
Barnes and Elizabeth (Wilson) Barnes. Milton 
Barnes was married on June 27, 1860, at 
Cambridge, Guernsey County, Ohio, to Rhoda 
Allison, daughter of James Allison, of Washington, 

Pennsylvania. Milton and Rhoda Barnes had five 
children: sons Clarence, Lowell, and Walter, and 
daughters Tirza and Maud. Milton Barnes died 
January 2, 1895, at Westerville Village, Blendon 
Township, Franklin County, Ohio, and was in¬ 
terred at Otterbein Cemetery (lot 213, section 1, 
grave number E6) in Westerville. Rhoda Barnes 
also died at Westerville, on July 5, 1919. 12 

Biographical Sketch 

Milton Barnes was raised on a farm in Belmont 
County, Ohio, in a family of eleven siblings. 

His paternal ancestors were English and his mother’s side Welsh. His early life was spent 
on a farm, and his education such as could be obtained at a country school. At eighteen he 
became a teacher, and at nineteen attended Allegheny College at Meadville, Pennsylvania, 
but failing health compelled his return home. He studied law and higher mathematics at 
an academy at Salem, Ohio, and then entered a law office at Mt. Vernon, and in January 
1859, was admitted to the bar. He removed to Cambridge and established an office, but 
in 1861 raised a company of soldiers and enlisted [August 9, 1862] as Captain in the 62nd 
Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Returning home on sick leave, he resigned this command, and 
reenlisted as Lieutenant Colonel of the 97th Regiment, with which he did gallant service. 

He was twice severely wounded, and was mustered out in June [10] 1865. He resumed his 
law practice on his return home, and in 1867, and again in 1869, was elected Prosecuting 
Attorney of Guernsey County. In 1876, he was nominated and elected Secretary of State 
and reelected in 1878. 13 

After he served as Secretary of State in Ohio from 1876-1881, Milton Barnes and his 
family moved to Westerville, Ohio. 

After coming to this place [Westerville, Ohio] he established and became editor of the 
Cleveland Saturday Ledger, which was a literary magazine of merit. At the close of this 
enterprise he entered into counsel with several business men and became one of the 
founders of The Fraternal Mystic Circle, a life insurance company on the mutual plan and 
became its first president. For several years he gave himself assiduously to promoting 
the interests of the company until it had become well established.... In May, 1891, he 
received the important appointment from Secretary Foster as agent of the U.S. Treasury 



; 


Milton Barnes. (Courtesy Special Coll, 
and Archives, George Mason Univ.) 


151 








Pribilof Islands: The People 


Department at Washington to the Alaskan seal fisheries, sailing for that most distant 
American post the same month he received the appointment.... What he had seen 
and what he had learned in that far off sea and island in their relations to this and other 
governments, so impressed him with their importance that he immediately set himself to 
the task of writing a book bearing the title, Alaska and the Fur Seal Fisheries of Behring 
Sea. This volume he was not permitted to finish. He leaves hundreds of neatly and carefully 
written pages of manuscript sufficient for a large book, but his failing health cut short the 
work. 14 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

The note below was drafted by Archivist Dr. Robert Hawke of George Mason University 
to introduce a letter from Milton Barnes to his son Clarence upon the elder Barnes’ ar¬ 
rival at St. George Island. 

NOTE: This letter of June 21, 1891, from Milton Barnes to a younger son, Clarence, is the 
last in this collection and the only one therein written in Barnes’ capacity as a U.S. Treasury 
Agent assigned to the “Fur Seal Islands” (the Pribilofs) in 1891-1892. Despite physical 
infirmities caused by a paralytic stroke in the 1880s, Barnes had secured his appointment 
from Secretary of the Treasury Charles Foster, who had previously been governor of and a 
congressman from Ohio. This letter details Barnes’ trip from Ohio to the Pribilofs- 

In the letter he mentions one of his superiors, Assistant Agent A. W. Favender. His 
observations in the letter on the seal fishing methods and trade and on the natives accord 
with official accounts. 15 

The following are excerpts from a nine-page typed transcription of Milton Barnes’ 

letter to his son. 

St. George Island, Behring Sea- 
June 21st, 1891 

My dear Clarence-- 

I presume this letter, dated in the midst of Behring Sea, will seem quite strange to you. 

But so it is. After a long journey—altogether near 5500 miles, I have at last reached my 
destination, and am settled down in my “Summer Residence” Island of St. George! What 
a great—strange world it is! I had but little conception of what a trip it would be, when 
I waived [sic] you & Ma adieu as my train steamed out of the union Depot at Columbus 
[Ohio] on the morning of May 15th. I was to be sure, exhilarated at the thought of a nice 
long trip overland, by rail, to the Pacific Coast—and it was fully realized, as I had a real 
pleasant trip thence, indeed! 

... We set sail on the 27th of May—about 6 o’clock P.M.—just in time to get out upon the 
Pacific Ocean before night set in. The weather was bright and clear and the scene was a 
grand one as I sat upon the upper deck and watched the receding view as we passed out 
through the Golden Gate out upon the bosom of old Ocean.... 

At last during the evening of the 10th day [June 6] we ... espied land, the rock bluffs and 
headlands of Unalaska.... Then entering the water of the Behring Sea, were again under 
way—and 24 hours later we landed at St. Paul—the larger of the Pribilov, or Fur Seal 
Islands—having been 14 days en route—St. Paul is the larger, and is the head quarters for 
the sealing operations—St. George is 36 miles south of it—and I, having been assigned for 
duty here, came back here on the Rush, on the 15th inst.... There is a small village here, 
as there is on St. Paul, consisting of a government house for the Treasury Agent, a house, 
office and warehouse for the Company, and small one story frame cottages for the natives, 
who are employed by the Company, in the business of killing seals and taking care of the 
skins. 


152 





Biographies B ♦ Barnes 


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(Courtesy Special Coll, and Archives. George Mason Univ.) 


I 


153 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


The Government house is a one story frame, about 32 feet square, and divided into four 
apartments, a sitting room—and office room, and two bed rooms—all very comfortably 
furnished. The Company’s house is about the same, only more extensive and with a dining 
room and attached kitchen—They also have quite a fine library of about six or seven 
hundred volumes. I live in the Government house and take my meals with the Company’s 
mess about 400 feet distance. The only company I have in the Government house is a Mr. 
Lavender, Asst. Treasury agent, who is going home this summer, and I will then be left 
entirely alone, as agent in charge. In the Company’s house, however, there is a Physician, 

Dr. Noyes, their agent Mr. Daniel Webster, a cook or steward, a school teacher, and a man 
of all work. These with myself will be all the white people there will be on this Island, 
after Mr. Lavender leaves, for the ensuing year. There is a Greek [Orthodox] Church here, 
established when these Islands were in the possession of Russia. The Priest is a native, 
but conducts his church service in the Russian language—the natives are a curious sort of 
people—very dusky complexion, black strait hair, small in stature, resembling a mixture of 
indian [sic] and Japanese. There is a tradition that more than a hundred years ago—several 
Japanese vessels from the Asiatic coast were wrecked on the Aleutian islands, and the 
crews, never being able to return to the place of their nativity, remained, intermarried with, 
and became a part of, what is now the native population. They are a quiet, peacable [sic] 
and inoffensive people, they and their children are communicants in the Greek church— 
and seem devoted to their religion. Their dialect is a sort of guttural—a mere jargon, which 
is very difficult to learn. It also seems very difficult for them to learn the english [sic] 
language. Although there has been a sort of school kept here for 15 or 20 years—with a 
teacher furnished by the Company having the leases, and required to do so in their lease— 
yet there does’nt [sic passim] seem to be more than two or three of them who can carry 
on an intelligent conversation in English. When talking with them the treasury agent has 
to use one of those as interpreter. I don’t understand why this should be, as the children 
appear to be naturally bright enough. St. George island [sic] is of a peculiar formation, but 
similar to St. Paul. There is no timber on it, the surface is very broken and hilly—has the 
appearance of having been thrown up by a volcanic eruption in some remote period of the 
world’s history—the elevation from three to nine hundred feet above the sea level—the 
rocky surface, having become eroded by the action of the weather—has gradually become 
covered with a sort of soil—composed of decomposed rock and vegetable mould—in which 
there is a vigorous growth of a short broad leafed grass which grows in bunches or tufts, 
all closely matted so that when you step on it, you sink down over shoe top and then strain 
yourself to make the next step, with the same result & [it] soon tires one out trying to walk 
over it—through all this—The green coating of grassy tufts mixed with a species of moss, in 
summer time, lends a beautiful tinge to these hills and bluff— 

There are no animals or game except the Seals and a few of the species of blue and the 
white fox, which are caught by the natives by traps, their fur is very pretty and valuable— 
the white sea gulls and other birds of fine plumage cluster along the rocky bluffs—build 
their nests and deposit their eggs by the hundred thousand. 

The fur seals are the principal object of the cupidity of man, hereabouts—Their nature and 
habits are very strange to the uninitiated—During the month of June and until the forepart 
of October, they gather here by the thousand, formerly by the hundred thousand, but of late 
their numbers seem to be decreasing every year, not only on account of the large number 
taken legitimately by the Company having the lease from the Government, but by foreign 
vessels—chiefly those of Great Britain and Canada—and private poachers or marauders— 
who are constantly cruising in Bering Sea, shooting them in the water, killing mostly the 
females— 

As to the manner of their legitimate killing on these islands—They come up from the 
water and herd upon the beach near the edge of the islands called rookeries ... the young 
males ... are the only ones allowed to be killed for their skins, by the Company ... the 
natives, who are in the employ of the company—get in between them and the water, 
and drive them in a flock, like a flock of sheep—up on to higher ground—away from the 
rookeries proper, to the place called the killing ground—If there is much distance to travel, 


154 




Biographies B ♦ Barnes 


they halt and rest every few rods—to catch their breath and give them rest—then start 
them on again—when they have arrived on the killing ground—the natives separate twenty 
or thirty of them in a bunch from the main flock, and surround them and commence 
beating them one at a time on the head with a club, made in the shape of a base ball club, 
only longer at the small end—these strokes [stun] them ... men catch and draw them away 
a few feet and stick them with a sharp butcher knife and proceed to remove the skin, much 
the same as a butcher slaughters a calf—these natives have become such adepts at the 
business, that the process of killing and skinning only occupies from three to five minutes 
in its execution. After the killing is over for the day, the skins are hauled to the Company’s 
ware house—where they are counted, and a tally kept by the officer in charge, whose report 
of the number taken, is the basis upon which the Company accounts to the Government, 
so much apiece, as revenue. The skins are then carefully packed and salted with a coating 
of rock salt, in which they lie until the killing season is over, when they are loaded aboard 
the Company’s vessel and shipped to London, England, where they are skillfully cured 
and dressed for the market. They are then put up to sale, and sold at public auction to 
the highest bidder, to manufacturers of seal skin sacks and other articles of ladies wear. It 
looks very cruel to witness the wanton destruction of these seals and in such an apparently 
brutal manner. The natives live principally on seal meat, and while the killing is going on 
their women and children are there with knives and sacks—cutting out choice pieces of 
the meat, and the blubber, which they use extensively for fuel. Portions of the meat they 
use while it is fresh and a part of the lean they cut into strips and hang up on cross poles to 
season in the open air to use later on. 

... The outlook is that my situation will be a pleasant—one so far as personal comfort 
is concerned. Save only the extreme isolation—cut off from all communication with 
home and friends for at least six months of the year. There has recently been a mail line 
established between Unalaska at the pass through the Aleutian chain of islands, and 
Sitka, or Port Townsend on the coast, which is to carry the mail to and from, once a 
month. At these points on the coast, I suppose it will be transferred to the Pacific Coast 
line of Steamers that regularly ply up and down the coast, between these points and San 
Francisco—thence overland eastward—but between Unalaska and these islands, near 200 
miles, there will be nothing to carry the mail to and from here, except the U.S. Revenue 
cutters, which will cruise around in these waters in the summer time. Later in the fall they 
all return to San Francisco to “tie up” for the winter—I have no doubt [that] after about 
October, it will be quite a lonesome life—but I have been overhauling the library here, and 
find it filled with well selected reading matter, &c—and after that I will have but little to 
do, but make myself as comfortable as possible—with the facilities at my command—In 
the winter time I am told the nights are long—the sun going down about three o’clock P.M. 
and rising about nine A.M., [making] about sixteen to eighteen hours of darkness. In the 
summer it is the reverse—Since I came here, the sun doesn’t go down until nine and it is 
after ten when it gets dark enough to have a lamp, and daylight begins to break about two 
in the morning—The [islands] are in latitude 54 degrees north, and Longitude 170 west— 

The difference in time between this and Columbus is nearly 6 hours—so that when you are 
eating supper we are just sitting down to dinner— 

Now my dear boy, it has been a month and 12 days since I left home and I begin to want 
letters pretty badly I assure you—won’t you sit down as soon as you receive this, and write 
me a good long letter. You need’nt [sic] cut it short for the want of material. You should 
remember that now, isolated as [I] am and will be, every little thing concerning yourself or 
the occurrences around you will be of interest to me, although they may be stale to you.... 

And Now Good Bye my dear son. 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Milton Barnes deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration before Treasury Agent-in-Charge 
William H. Williams on June 23, 1892, at St. Paul Island, Alaska: 


155 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


I am a citizen of the United States and when at home reside near Columbus, Ohio. Have 
been temporarily stationed during the last year on the Island of St. Paul... as special 
employee of the United States Treasury Department on said island. 

One day, during the latter part of August or fore part of September last (exact date 
forgotten), Col. Joseph Murray, one of the Treasury agents, and myself, in company with 
the British Commissioners, Sir George Baden-Powell and Dr. Dawson, by boat visited one 
of the seal rookeries of that Island, known as Tolstoi or English Bay. On arriving there our 
attention was at once attracted by the excessive number of dead seal pups whose carcasses 
lay scattered profusely over the breeding ground or sand beach bordering the rookery 
proper.... 

Some days after this ... I drove with Mr. Fowler, an employe [sic] of the lessees, to what is 
known as Half-Way Point, or Polovinia [sic] rookery. Here the scene was repeated, but on a 
more extensive scale in point of numbers.... This condition of the rookeries in this regard 
was for some time a common topic of conversation in the village by all parties, including 
the more intelligent ones among the natives, some of whom were with Mr. J. Stanley Brown 
in his work of surveying the island . 16 

The seal experts later (1896-97) determined that the vast majority of pups discussed 
in Barnes’ deposition succumbed to starvation as their mothers had been killed at sea by 
the pelagic sealers. Also, infestation by parasitic worms caused physical weakness that 
subjected many pups to death by trampling from the movements of bull and cow seals. 17 



Milton Barnes on the Pribilof Islands. (AMNH Special Collections, Chichester Coll., HDC272, neg. 
349SS.) 


156 










Biographies B ♦ Barnes - Beaman 


Bartlett, Edward (Bob) Lewis ( 1904-1968) 

Alaska Delegate to Congress, 1945-1958 
U.S. Senator (Democrat), 1959-1968 18 

Genealogy 

Edward “Bob” Lewis Bartlett was born to Edward and Ida Bartlett at Seattle, King County, 
Washington, on April 20, 1904. Edward Bartlett married Vide Gaustad on August 14, 
1930. Edward and Vide Bartlett had two children: Doris Ann and Susan. 19 Bob Bartlett 
died at Cleveland, Ohio, December 11, 1968, and was interred at Northern Lights 
Memorial Park, Fairbanks, Alaska. 20 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

U.S. Senator Bartlett was approached by the Director of the Alaska Human Rights 
Commission, Willard L. Bowman, regarding the plight of the Pribilof Islands’ Native 
population. Bartlett took up the charge with the support of Bowman, the editors of the 
Tundra Times, and “their friends.” Senator Bartlett visited St. Paul Island on September 
9 and 10, 1965. In addition to touring seal rookeries, private homes, and the school, he 
met with members of the St. Paul and St. George communities to discuss his pending 
legislation, which on June 7, 1965, he presented before the 89th Congress, 1st Session, 
as S. 2102. The bill became the Fur-Seal Act of 1966, which paved the way toward self- 
determination for the Pribilof Aleuts and assured them of their full rights as citizens of 
the United States. 21 


Beaman, John Warren ( 1845-1903) 

Assistant Special Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. Paul Island, 1879-1880 
Genealogy 

John Warren Beaman was the son of Reverend Warren Harrison Beaman (1813-1901), a 
Congregational minister, and Elizabeth Lydia (Worcester) Beaman (1814-1889), of North 
Hadley, Massachusetts. In 1879, John Beaman married Elizabeth Dubois (1854-1932), 
the daughter of surveyor engineer Nicholas Dubois and Louisa Griffin. John Beaman died 
December 13, 1903, in Greensboro, North Carolina, while overseeing the construction of 
a post office for the Treasury Department. 22 

Biographical Sketch 

John Beaman attended Williston Seminary in pursuit of a ministry vocation and later en¬ 
tered Amherst College, in the 1863-64 academic year. He enlisted on January 4,1864, as a 
private in Nims Battery, 2nd Massachusetts Light Artillery. He received his discharge on 
June 5, 1865, after being hospitalized as a prisoner of war at Hopewell General Hospital 
in Alexandria, Virginia. At Hopewell, while recovering from frostbite and exposure, he 
met his future wife, Elizabeth Dubois, who was serving as a nurse. Before their marriage, 


157 








Pribilof Islands: The People 



John Beaman in Yellowstone. (SIA 2004-43528, RU 7177, box 1, folder 34.) 


she convinced Beaman to pursue a career in engineering. In 1867, after the Civil War, 
Beaman entered Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, where he worked 
toward a degree in mine engineering until 1870. He participated in the 1870 Hayden 
Survey to New Mexico and subsequently served as a civil engineer in public land surveys 
throughout the United States. After his Pribilof Islands appointment, he became a mining 
engineer in Lewis, Nevada, and later Superintendent of Construction of Public Buildings 
in North Hadley, Massachusetts. In 1902, the U.S. Treasury Department sent Beaman to 
Greensboro, North Carolina, to oversee post office and government building construc¬ 
tion. 23 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Much of what we know of John Warren Beaman’s experiences on the Pribilof Islands was 
recorded in detailed journals by his wife, Elizabeth “Libby” Beaman, which her grand¬ 
daughter Betty John published in 1987 as the book Libby. The book tells of Elizabeth 
making a plea for employment for her husband to family friend and U.S. President 
Rutherford B. Hayes: 

“My husband was with the [Geodetic] Survey Office. You abolished it six months ago. Mr. 

Beaman has tried to find work, any kind of work. There isn’t any work. I know you will be 
angry with me when I say it is unfair for veterans to have to face this—most unfair that 
someone wounded at Red River should have to walk the streets looking for even the most 
menial job. The men who fought to keep this nation together deserve something better 
than that.” 


158 







Biographies B ♦ Beaman 



Author Betty (Beaman) John (third from left) with Cleveland Heights, Ohio, students in 1957 display¬ 
ing their artwork after reading Betty John’s novel about the life of the fur seal, Seloe. The story was 
based on personal recollections of and a scrapbook by her grandparents, John and Libby Beaman. Left 
to right: Karen Keller, Jackie Zucker, Betty John, Anna Gruttadauria, Barbara Leavitt, and Thomas 
Clark. (Photo: Bernie Noble, Cleveland Press. Original print held by Shaker Heights Public Library, 
Local History Collection, Shaker Heights, OH; digital image provided by Cleveland State Univ., 
Cleveland Memory Project; photo identifier.shpl-xxxx-000369.) 


“You mean to say that one of Burnside’s men is in such a plight? ... Your husband is an 
engineer, is he not?” 

“Yes, a trained civil engineer, especially trained in cartography....” 

“The Treasury Department has been importuning me to appoint a new assistant special 
agent to one of our newest outpost responsibilities. Your husband has been surveying 
all over the country. That means he must be accustomed to rough living and all kinds of 
weather conditions, doesn’t it? ... Do you think he would be interested in going to the 
Aleutian Islands? ... 

“Actually, it’s still farther north than the Aleutians.... The Seal Islands are in the Bering 
Sea. We need another agent up there to supervise the taking of the seal pelts, which means 
a considerable income to our government. That is about all I can think of that might help 
you out at the moment. The pay is good and there is absolutely no expense involved, so the 
entire salary could be saved. There is a senior special agent there already. I could appoint 
your husband to be his assistant. It is a two-year contract. Do you think you could part with 
your husband for two years?” 24 

■ y 


159 














Pribilof Islands: The People 


Libby did not let her husband travel to the Pribilofs alone. (The book Libby claims 
incorrectly that she was the first white woman to visit the islands. 25 ) However, John and 
Libby Beaman did not remain for the full two-year term of her husband’s appointment, 
possibly because John Beaman was dissatisfied with his position, or because of Libby’s 
pregnancy, 26 or both. Agent-in-Charge Harrison G. Otis penned the following comment 
about Beaman’s early departure in his 1880 annual report: 

Assistant Agent Beaman, carrying into effect a threat first expressed nearly a year ago and 
frequently since, has for personal reasons taken the responsibility of leaving his post of duty 
and these islands without authority from the Treasury Department, and also in defiance 
of my own previous and formal disapproval of his course. He embarked from St. George 
Island on the 24th instant. I report the facts for your information and action thereon. 2 


Boscowitz, David Aaron ( 1866 - 1938 ) and Leopold Joseph 
(b. 1868 ) 


Genealogy 

David Aaron Boscowitz and Leopold Joseph Boscowitz were two of five children of Joseph 
Boscowitz and Leah Jane (Phillips) Boscowitz of Victoria, B.C. 28 

Biographical Sketch 

Brothers David Aaron and Leopold Joseph Boscowitz both played a role in the furrier 
business. David entered Cambridge University in 1885. 29 The 1898-1900 London City 
Directory listed him as part of J. Boscowitz and Sons, fur dealer. As a spokesman for 
the Canadian government, Leopold Joseph Boscowitz represented Canadian sealers in 
London during the 1897 pelagic sealing controversy. 

Although Leopold Joseph Boscowitz declared Canadian sealers’ willingness to relin¬ 
quish their assets for a price, and the buyout took place, not all the sealers were pleased 
about selling their boats and ending their pelagic sealing days in the Bering Sea. 30 


ENGLAND AND THE SEALS 


John W. Foster Told that the Canadian Interests Would Yield Only For Compensation. 


NO MORE PROFIT IN THE CATCH 


The Question May be Reopened Before the Time Specified in the Paris Award—Eighty Per Cent 

of the Pelagic Skins Those of Females. 

LONDON, June 12—John W. Foster, who is now in St. Petersburg [Russia], is expected back in 
London on July 1. He did not call at the Foreign Office during the few days he was in London, 
but he had conferences with Col. Hay, and on the day previous to his departure he had an 
interview of nearly an hour with Mr. Liebes of the North American Commercial Company, 
who has been in communication with the Embassy during Mr. Bayard’s term of office regarding 
the false statements alleged to have been made by Canadian sealers respecting the sex of their 
catch. 


160 










Biographies B ♦ Beaman - Boscowitz 


During the interview Mr. Foster, asked as to the propositions he was to lay before the Russian 
Government, replied that he did not know until he got to St. Petersburg. Mr. Foster was 
informed by Mr. Liebes that his going to Russia and any arrangement that he might make there 
would not be binding upon England, as Great Britain, so far as he could learn, would do nothing 
in the matter until the five years specified by the Paris award had expired. The Canadians, 
moreover, said Mr. Liebes, although they made no money over the business, would not be 
satisfied to give in unless they got compensation. 

Mr. Liebes then said to Mr. Loster: “I will be very willing, personally, to pay the Canadians any 
profits they have made during the past three years, and will furnish very good security for the 
amount, provided the Governments concerned will satisfy the Canadians in the way of buying 
their vessels.” 

“Would they be satisfied?” remarked Mr. Foster. 

Mr. Liebes replied: “I have seen here Mr. Leopold Boscowitz, son of Joseph Boscowitz of 
Victoria, B.C., a Canadian sealer having large interests, and he said to me: ‘I assure you if we be 
compensated for our vessels the question can be settled in ten minutes’ Mr. Liebes rejoined: 
“Have you authority to speak for any one besides yourself?" to which Mr. Boscowitz said: “All 
the Canadians will be very glad to be bought out.” 

New York Times, “England and the Seals,” June 13, 1897, 13. 


Boscowitz, Joseph ( 1835 - 1923 ) 

Fur Dealer, Boscowitz and Sons, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, 1870 to circa 1912 


Genealogy 

Joseph Boscowitz and his brother, Leopold, na¬ 
tives of Floss, Bavaria, immigrated to Victoria, 
British Columbia, in 1860. Joseph lived with his 
family at both Victoria and London, England. 
Joseph Boscowitz married a Philadelphia woman, 
Leah Jane Phillips, in December 1864, at Victoria. 
Joseph and Leah Boscowitz had five children: 
David Aaron (1866-1938), Leopold Joseph (b. 
1868), Barbara, Leah, and Ada Doris. In 1923, 
Joseph Boscowitz died in Victoria at the age of 
eighty-eight . 31 

Biographical Sketch 

The Boscowitz brothers initially opened a to¬ 
bacco shop on Yates Street in Victoria. In 1870, 
they began a successful fur trade business, princi¬ 
pally in seal pelts. In 1877, Joseph Boscowitz left 
Victoria for London under suspicion of alleged 
improprieties regarding the issuance of deben¬ 
tures to the provincial government. Seven years 



Joseph Boscowitz (right) and Henry 
Appleton, Victoria, B.C., circa 1910. 
(BCA, Visual Records Catalogue, call no. 
C-06036.) 


161 








Pribilof Islands: The People 


later, Boscowitz, his wife, and some of their children returned to Victoria to expand his 
business investments, including J. Boscowitz and Sons, fur dealers. 32 In 1890, Joseph in¬ 
vested further, first in a fleet of pelagic sealing vessels and then beyond sealing, in the 
Boscowitz Steamship Company, the Victoria Theatre, and numerous real estate holdings. 

In 1966, James I<. Nesbitt wrote a retrospective about Joseph Boscowitz that includ¬ 
ed his personal, political, and financial activities; it was published in The Daily Colonist 
under the title “Boscowitz Runs the Machine.” 33 The excerpt below was extracted by 
Nesbitt from a special edition (1896) of The Colonist: 

One of the oldest and largest commercial enterprises of British Columbia is that of J. 

Boscowitz and Sons, fur dealers at Fort and Wharf Streets. Thirty-five years ago this 
enterprise was inaugurated, and from the outset has been steadily growing until the present 
extensive proportions have been reached. 

Furs of all kinds are dealt in, the specialty being seal skins, and an idea of the business done 
in these may be gleaned from the fact that the firm maintains four large sealing schooners 
and handles, on an average, about 20,000 skins a year. 

The highest cash prices are paid, while cash advances are made on consignments, on 
shipments to Europe, in fitting out schooners for sealing, for fur trading, salmon, and 
on cannery supplies. The greater portion of the skins bought by the firm is sold direct 
to London dealers. The operation of the firm has always been characterized by liberality 
and reliability. Mr. Joseph Boscowitz is a young man of ability, and is doing a great deal to 
advance the interests of the firm. 34 

Joseph Boscowitz “retired from active business with the wiping out of the sealing 
industry,” 35 after the 1911 Fur-Seal Treaty was signed by Great Britain (representing 
Canada), the United States, Japan and Russia. 



Victoria, B.C., 1868. Yates Street from the corner of Wharf Street, south side, B. Boscowitz, pioneer 
dealer in furs, sign clearly visible. (Photo: Frederick Dally [1838-1914]. BCA, call no. A-01614.) 


162 























_ Biographies B ♦ Boscowitz 

Boscowitz, Leopold ( 1832 - 1895 ) 

Fur Dealer, Boscowitz and Sons, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, 1870 to circa 1880 
Genealogy 

Leopold Boscowitz and his brother, Joseph, natives of Floss, Bavaria, immigrated to 
Victoria, British Columbia, in 1860. The two brothers initially opened a tobacco shop on 
Yates Street in Victoria. In 1870, they began a successful business in the seal-pelt trade. 

Leopold Boscowitz married Margaretha (Margaret) Simon, born about 1821 in 
Salzungen, Germany. Margaretha was the daughter of Michael Simon and Christine 
(Erbe) Simon. 

Leopold Boscowitz’s obituary in the New York Times on the day after his death at his 
New York City home read: 

Leopold Boscowitz, a retired merchant, died suddenly at his home, 130 East Fifty-Sixth 
Street, from paralysis of the brain. He was sixty-three years old, and was born in Floss, 

Bavaria. He came to this country in 1860, and settled in San Francisco, where he engaged 
in the tobacco business. Later he became a member of the Alaska Commercial Company 
that was formed after the purchase of Alaska for the purpose of catching seals. He retired 
from business about fifteen years ago, after having accumulated a fortune. He leaves a wife, 
whose maiden name was Miss Margaret Simons. 36 

After her husband’s death, Margaret Boscowitz married Ernst H. Bauer on June 21, 
1897. She died March 29, 1902, in Manhattan, New York. 37 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

The Boscowitz family became a significant force in the Victoria, British Columbia, mer¬ 
cantile industry and exerted considerable influence in the fur-seal industry, particularly 
with respect to the pelagic sealing fishery. 

Leopold, fur buyer, a resident of Victoria, and a British subject, associated with his 
brother Joseph. In 1867 Boscowitz was on the spot in Sitka as soon as word spread of 
the impending transfer [of Russian America to the United States]. Prince Maksutov, the 
governor of Russian America, is said to have told him that he could buy all the furs that 
were in the company warehouses in Sitka at the established prices at which the RAC 
[Russian-American Company] had been selling them. The cautious Boscowitz took [only] 

16,000 fur-seal skins at the rock bottom price of forty cents apiece, and shipped them to 
Victoria, where they sold for two to three dollars apiece. When he received word from 
Victoria of his success, Boscowitz tried to secure the remainder of the skins, but meanwhile 
Maksutov had received orders not to sell any more. 

Boscowitz, in the fur trade, and a fellow resident of Victoria, William Kohl, who was 
in shipping, were well known to each other. After the transfer both went to Sitka at 
approximately the same time. They presumably heard that Captain Gustave Niebaum, a 
Russian American Company (RAC) skipper, with four associates, had bought from Prince 
Maksutov the RAC brig Konstantin (Constantine) and were fitting her out for a voyage to 
the Pribylov Islands to pick up a cargo of sealskins to be taken to San Francisco for sale. 

Boscowitz and Kohl appear to have come together with the idea of arranging to acquire 
the cargo upon its arrival in San Francisco, so Boscowitz evidently thought of Adolf 
Wasserman, a well-placed San Francisco fur dealer. Therefore, Boscowitz and Kohl left 
Sitka together for San Francisco on the John L. Stephens, arriving 22 November [1867]. 

They joined forces with Wasserman and on 18 January 1868 returned to Sitka on the 


163 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


steamer Fideliter (Erskine). In Sitka Boscowitz and Kohl found another entrepreneur, H. 

W. Hutchinson, who represented a group which included Abraham Hirsch, and the San 
Francisco merchants Louis Sloss and Louis Gerstle. Hutchinson, in a business coup had 
first made a bulk purchase of RAC moveable goods from Prince Maksutov. 

Hutchinson, Kohl, and Boscowitz were together for some time in Sitka and on 24 January 
1868, left on the same ship as Prince Maksutov reaching San Francisco on February 5. At 
Sitka, or on shipboard, they probably agreed to combine forces. There they got together 
with their respective San Francisco associates, Sloss and Gerstle, and Wasserman, and by 
the beginning of March had united as Hutchinson, Kohl and Company. When Niebaum 
arrived in the Constantine on 2 March with a cargo of sealskins, which he delivered to 
Wasserman, he too was offered an association with the new firm. Presumably Niebaum’s 
four associates declined or were bought out. Now there were seven; an eighth partner, John 
F. Miller, was brought in 1870. 

In October 1868 the Alaska Commercial Company was formed, at first virtually 
synonymous with the Hutchinson, Kohl Company. Passage on 1 July 1870 of legislation 
authorizing an exclusive twenty-year sealing lease of the Pribylov Islands to the Alaska 
Commercial Company began a two-year changeover of Hutchinson, Kohl interests to 
the Alaska Commercial Company. Boscowitz, not being an American citizen and hence 
excluded by terms of the lease, was eliminated in early 1872, having to sell 1,400 shares 
to Mark Livingston, another German-Jewish pioneer merchant in San Francisco and a 
close friend of Wasserman, who probably interested him [Livingston] in the investment. 
Returning from San Francisco on 14 March 1871, he [Boscowitz] thereafter remained in 
Victoria as a property owner and furrier, making frequent visits to Europe. 38 


Bower, Ward Taft ( 1881 - 1959 ) 

Fish Culturist, U.S. Fish Commission, 1900-1911 

Inspector, Assistant Agent, Chief of Division of Alaska Fisheries, U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
Service, 1911-1947 

Genealogy 

Ward Taft Bower was born on November 17, 1881, in Northville, Michigan, to Seymour 
Bower, Chief of the Michigan Fish Commission. Ward Bower died on November 21, 
1959, in St. Petersburg, Florida. 39 

Biographical Sketch and Pribilof Islands Experience 

Ward Bower’s biography is well summarized by the following news release: 

Department of the Interior. Information Service. Fish and Wildlife Service. 

For Release to the AM’s 40 of Thursday, April 3, 1947. 


WARD T. BOWER RETIRES FROM FEDERAL SERVICE 

After 47 years of continuous service in fisheries work for the United States Government, 
Ward T. Bower has retired as Chief of the Division of Alaska Fisheries of the Fish and 
Wildlife Service, it was announced today by Albert M. Day, Director of the Service. Mr. 
Bower has been located in Chicago since 1942 when the headquarters of the Service was 
moved from Washington [D.C.] to that city. 


164 





Biographies B ♦ Boscowitz - Bowman 


“Ward Bower leaves a magnificent record of achievement in the field of conservation, and 
his retirement will be distinctly felt," said Mr. Day. “His is the longest record of continuous 
service in Federal fisheries work. In his years of duty, he has become a specialist on Alaska, 
and an authority on the aquatic resources of that great Territory. Under his administration 
... the North Pacific fur seal herd had increased from 125,000 animals in 1911 to more 
than 3,300,000 today, and through wise management during this period of growth, about 
1,300,000 sealskins have been taken from surplus male animals to enrich the Treasury of 
the United States by more than 10 million dollars. 

This outstanding accomplishment in the field of wildlife restoration is only one of the 
monuments to Mr. Bower’s tireless devotion to the cause of conservation. In addition, he 
has had a guiding hand in the development and management of the valuable salmon and 
other commercial fisheries of Alaska, directing and encouraging the research on which 
has been based legislation and regulations designed to maintain them forever at high, 
productive levels. 

Ward T. Bower came by his interest in fishery conservation naturally.... [H]is father, 
Seymour Bower, was for 20 years the active head of the Michigan Fish Commission, the 
forerunner of the present Department of Conservation of Michigan. Educated in Detroit, 
Mr. Bower joined the staff of the U.S. Fish Commission as an apprentice fish culturist on 
July 1, 1900, at the fish cultural station at Northville, Michigan. This organization in 1903, 
was designated as the Bureau of Fisheries and in 1940, it was merged with the Biological 
Survey to form the present Fish and Wildlife Service. 

For the first ten years of his service, Mr. Bower was identified with fish cultural activities, 
holding positions of responsibility at stations in Michigan, Minnesota, and California, and 
finally going to the Washington office as Superintendent of fish distribution. In 1911, Mr. 
Bower entered full time work in the Division of Alaska Fisheries with which he has been 
associated continuously ever since, holding variously the positions of Inspector, Assistant 
Agent, Agent, Administrative Officer, and Chief. During the years since 1911, he has spent 
many months in Alaska, and in 1922 he accompanied the Assistant Secretary of Commerce 
on a world cruise to investigate the maritime industries and economic conditions in 
Russia, Japan, China, India, Egypt, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, the British Isles, and 
elsewhere. 

Mr. Bower has been a member of the American Fisheries Society since 1900, an officer of 

the Society for five terms, and editor of its publications two different years-Mr. Bower is 

the author of more than 40 publications on a variety of subjects in the fields of fish culture, 
aquarium management, fishery conservation, marine mammals, and Alaska.” 41 


Bowman, Willard L. (1919-1975) 

Executive Director, Alaska State Committee for Human Rights, 1963-1965 
Politician, Aleut Human Rights Advocate 

Genealogy 

Willard Bowman was born on August 18, 1919, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He moved 
to Anchorage, Alaska, in 1950, and became an active voice for Native civil rights. Willard 
Bowman died in Anchorage on December 3, 1975. 42 

Biographical Sketch 

Willard Bowman “served in the U.S. Navy between 1938 and 1945, and in 1950, he moved 
to Anchorage, Alaska, where he worked as a laborer and was an active union member. 


165 






Pribilof Islands: The People 



Pribilof Islands Experience 

Willard Bowman became the first Executive 
Director for the Alaska State Committee for 
Human Rights and served from 1963 to 1975. 
Later he was Chairman of the Alaska State House 
Rules Committee. He investigated administrative 
procedures governing the Pribilof Aleuts after 
the Tundra Times wrote extensively about living 
standards on the islands. He “allied himself with 
the editor of [the Tundra Times], and assistant 
editor Thomas A. Snapp, in fighting for the rights 
of the Pribilof people. Bowman did much to bring 
about the desired end from the standpoint of the native citizens. He battled those who 
would only whitewash a bad situation.” 44 Later, Senator E. L. Bartlett became involved, 
and the three worked together to help address human rights problems involving the 
Pribilof Aleut population. Bowman “was a great humanitarian. He did not live in vain. He 
achieved better things in life for people no matter who they were.” 45 


Willard Bowman in 1970 during 
campaign for Alaska House of 
Representatives. (Courtesy UAA, 
Archives.) 


He later became a labor management consultant. 
He was also an active member of the NAACP in 
Anchorage. He was elected to the State House of 
Representatives in three consecutive elections 
(1970, 1972, and 1974). Representative Bowman 
was one of the first Black Americans to serve in 
the Alaska Legislature.” 43 


Bryant, Charles ( 1820 - 1903 ) 

Whaling Captain 

Special Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Territory of Alaska, 1869 
Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Seal Islands, 1870-1877 

An expanded genealogy and biographical sketch of Charles Bryant is presented in the 
“First Three Managers” section of this volume. 


166 







Biographies B ♦ Bowman - Buterin 

Buterin, James P. ( 1857 - 1883 ) 

School Teacher, St. Paul Island, 1878-1882 
Biographical Sketch 

James Buterin, Chief Karp Buterin’s younger brother, left St. Paul Island on September 9, 
1872, at age fifteen for schooling in San Francisco. 46 He later went to Rutland, Vermont, 
at the direction of the Alaska Commercial Company (ACC), which began to send prom¬ 
ising young Aleuts off the island for their education; he was the first person so sent. 47 
He returned to St. Paul Island on May 12, 1878, aboard the ACC steamer St. Paul to 
teach at the school. His first year of teaching began on September 2, 1878, with forty stu¬ 
dents; the school year ended on May 8, 1879. Comments in the Agent’s Log and Agent’s 
Annual Report praised his service: “Mr. Butrin is worthy of commendation for the faith¬ 
ful manner in which he has [unreadable] discharged his arduous duties. A great deal of 
difficulty has been experienced in compelling the individual attendance of many of the 
children for the reason that, with a few exceptions, the parents are perfectly indifferent 
about it, and in some cases have made all sorts of excuses to prevent their children from 
attending regularly.” The agent took effort to mention that student Julia Kushin was pres¬ 
ent every day during the term. 48 

On St. Paul Island the school is fortunate in being conducted by a native teacher, James 
Buterin, who possesses a good English education, and much industry, tact, and energy. The 
attendance at the last term [1879] averaged 39 out of a total enrollment of 42 pupils. 49 

James Buterin continued as teacher on St. Paul Island until the close of the school 
year, May 15, 1882. Ill health had plagued him throughout the school year and forced 
him to leave the Pribilofs. He departed on July 28, 1882, aboard the steamer St. Paul to 
seek medical care on the West Coast. 50 James Buterin died in California in March 1883 
of consumption. 51 


Buterin, Karp (b. 1851 ) 

Aleut Chief, St. Paul Island, 1891-1893 
Genealogy 

Karp Buterin was born October 25, 1851, on St. Paul Island, Alaska. 52 Karp was the son 
of Chief Kerick Bootrin and Lokeli (aka Lokelia) Bootrin (1819-1875). Karp Buterin mar¬ 
ried Parascovia (surname unknown) born August 7, 1854 in Unalaska, Alaska. Parascovia 
Buterin died on St. Paul Island, March 10, 1923. 53 Karp Buterin died sometime after 
1928. 54 

Biographical Sketch 

Agent George Tingle spoke highly of Karp Buterin’s father, Chief Kerick Bootrin, in his 
1888 testimony before a congressional committee: “Old Kerrick Booterin, the most intel¬ 
ligent native of the islands, told me that under Russian rule he was the highest salaried 


167 







Pribilof Islands: The People 



Karp Buterin with two girls. (Watson 
Colt Allis scrapbook, 99-07-79, Greta 
Ericson Photographs, Archives, Alaska 
and Polar Regions Coll., Rasmuson 
Library, University of Alaska 
Fairbanks.) 


man on the islands. That he was the head carpen¬ 
ter and the highest payment he ever received from 
Russia in one year was $60. That man now receives 
about $600, or a little over, in cash. He has charge of 
the boats, and is one of the first-class men.” 55 

Karp Buterin’s mother, Lokeli Bootrin, died 
February 26, 1875, of bronchitis at age fifty-six. 
According to Agent Charles Bryant, she was the 
oldest woman on St. Paul Island. She had served 
as head housekeeper for the Russian-American 
Company, and she continued in the same capac¬ 
ity for Hutchinson, Kohl, & Co. and the Alaska 
Commercial Company until the fall of 1872, when 
she went to Unalaska to spend the winter with 
friends. “She has always been a bright character for 
honesty and faithfulness and is more respected than 
any other native woman on the island.” 56 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Karp Buterin, head chief at St. Paul Island, gave the 
following deposition [excerpted] to the Tribunal 
of Arbitration before Treasury Agent-in-Charge 
William H. Williams at St. Paul Island, Alaska, on 
June 9, 1892: 


I am 39 years of age and I was born on St. Paul Island, Alaska, and I have always lived 
here. I have a practical knowledge of the fur-seal industry as it is done on St. Paul Island, 
for I have been working at it all of my life since I was able to work. I have driven seals and 
clubbed and skinned them; I have had charge of the drives and I have been second chief for 
four years, and I am head chief now, being elected in 1891. As chief it is my duty to see that 
the rookeries are not troubled by anyone, to teach my people to obey the law and my young 
men how to drive seals to the killing grounds without injuring them. 57 

The St. Paul Island Agent’s Log often provided anecdotal glimpses of everyday life on 
the island. An entry on October 11, 1897, made mention of Karp Buterin. 

Aggie Kushin, Nicoli Krukoff and Markel Volkoff with a force of Assistants, were to remove 
the shed of the Billiard hall over to Karp Buterin’s, where it will be joined to Karp’s house as 
an addition. 


168 






Karp Buterin and small girl standing in entrance to outbuilding, St. Paul Island. (Washington State 
Historical Society, Asahel Curtis photographs, 1943.42.29269.) 



Nester. 

Kushin 


Thedosia 


Sedickt 


Direria 

PankofF 


Neon 




1 


Seal strippers, St. Paul Island, 1892. (BCA, Richard Maynard Coll., F-02165.) 


169 


















Karp Buterin and small 
boy. (NAA, Joseph Stanley- 
Brown Lantern Slide Coll., 
lot 54-090.) 


Karp Buterin and family, St. Paul Island, 
circa 1920s. (Photo: Albert Christofferson. 
California Academy of Sciences Library, G 
Dallas Hanna Coll., 79.) 



170 














Biographies B ♦ Buterin - Buynitzky 


Buynitzky, Stephen Nestor ( 1832 - 1903 ) 

Special Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. George Island, 1870 
First Schoolteacher on St. George Island 

Special Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. Paul Island, July 1871-April 1872 
Genealogy 

Stephen Buynitzky was born in December 1832, at Disna, Russia. According to a family 
genealogist, Stephen Buynitzky left Russia circa 1861. Stephen married Carolina Petsch, 
daughter of Julius and Eleanor Picker, in Washington, D.C., around 1870. Stephen and 
Carolina Buynitzky had three children: Julius Stephen (1874-1977), who became a drug¬ 
gist in Washington, D.C.; Eleanor (1880-1917), who became an assistant in the National 
Weather Service library; and Alexander (1888-1970), who clerked in the U.S. Navy 
Department. Stephen Buynitzky died in Washington, D.C., April 3, 1903. 58 

Biographical Sketch 

Mr. Buynitzky came to the United States with an interesting legacy and gifted talent. 

Stephen was once a Baron but left that title and his son Alex behind in Russia because 
the son would have lost his land and his title had he left the country. Stephen left Russia 
around 1861 probably because political change was about to claim all his wealth. Here in 
this country he became affectionately known as the Baron. He was a founder of a French 
Society in DC and his obituary states that they began his memorial service with the Polish 
National Anthem because it was where he was born. 59 

In 1868, Julius Petsch [his future father-in-law] of Hanover, Prussia, and Stephen Buynitzky 
of St. Petersburg, Russia, jointly filed a U.S. Patent for an ingenious vacuum coffee brewer 
consisting of an integrated pot with internal upper and lower chambers, suspended by 
trunnions from a stand over a spirit heater. Due to the asymmetrical shapes of the two 
chambers, when the water rises to the upper chamber, the pot becomes unbalanced and 
tips to the side. This process extinguishes the heater, and when the vacuum pulls the 
brewed coffee back into the lower chamber, the pot swings back to vertical, simultaneously 
tripping a small hammer which then strikes a bell to indicate that the coffee is ready. 60 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

In addition to being an agent at St. George, Stephen Buynitzky founded the island’s first 
American school and briefly served as schoolteacher in 1870. In 1871, Buynitzky pub¬ 
lished a book through the Alaska Commercial Company about the Aleut language titled 
English-Aleutian Vocabulary (Sail [San] Francisco: Alta California Book and Job Printing 
House. No. 529 California Street, 1871.) A copy of this rare book is located in the Loussac 
Library, Anchorage. 

Mr. Buynitzky provided the following information about himself during two investi¬ 
gations of the Fur Seal Islands: 

I am a Russian by birth and am 60 years of age. I graduated from the Imperial Lyceum at St. 
Petersburg, an institution for the nobility. I am now a resident of the city of Washington. 61 

... I am now a citizen of the United States-My first orders from the Treasury 

Department bore date May 25, 1870. That was some time before the act in relation to this 


171 








Men playing pool. Anton Kushin (1), Nick Stepetin (2), Alex Stepetin (3), Andrew Stepetin (4), Agafon 
Krukoff (5), Paul Krukoff (6), Alfey Melovidov (7), George Rukovishnikoff (8), Andronic Oustigoff (9), 
and John Hapoff(lO). (Fredricka Martin Photograph Coll., 91-223-224, Archives, Alaska and Polar 
Regions Coll., Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.) 


172 






Biographies B ♦ Buynitzky 


matter [the Alaska Commercial Company lease] was passed. There was no near prospect 
of the act being passed at that session, as the session was then far advanced, and the 
expectation of Secretary Boutwell, I understood, was that no legislation on the subject 
would be had that session. At the same time he knew that the natives there were destitute, 
he having prohibited any vessels from landing there while the question of the management 
of the island was pending before Congress. My instructions were, acting under the orders 
of Captain Bryant, the special agent of the Treasury Department, to assist him in taking 
charge, for the time being, of the two islands. I reported to Captain Bryant, and was put 
in charge of Saint George, while he himself sailed to Saint Paul. We had a small lot of 
provisions, such as salt, flour, etc., and were expecting our orders and further news from 
the States. In that condition we remained there about three months. At the end of the three 
months (on the 12th of October, 1870) the steamer Constantine arrived at Saint George, 
and brought to the agents of the Alaska Company a copy of the act of July 1, and a copy 
of the orders of the Secretary of the Treasury to allow that company to take possession of 
the skins which had accumulated on the island at the time. It also brought orders to myself 
to proceed to Washington and resume my duties as clerk in the office of the Secretary. At 
that period I was acting in utter ignorance of any law having been passed by Congress in 
regard to the management of fur-seal fisheries, and of any lease having been granted to any 
one. I immediately left and returned to Washington.... The second time I was ordered 
to proceed to the island of Saint Paul, there to report to Captain Bryant, who was then in 
charge, and to act entirely under his orders so long as he wanted my services there, and in 
case he should conclude to go to Washington, that I should remain on the island of Saint 
Paul and take charge of his duties. Captain Bryant concluded to go to Washington, and 
gave me orders to remain on the island. 62 


1 “To Watch Seal Hunters,” New York Times, June 23, 1891, 1. 

2 Edmond C. Jeffery, Alaska: Who’s Here, What’s Doing, Who’s Doing It, 1955 (Anchorage, AK: Jeffery, 
1955); and “Obituary: Charles Howard Baltzo,” The Olympian (Olympia, WA), June 8, 2003, 13. 

3 U.S. Congress, House Commerce Secretary’s Report to Congress on the Pribilof Islands As Required 
Linder Public Law 104-91, Federal Register 62, no. 72 (Apr. 15, 1997): 18,319. Also, C. Howard 
Baltzo, “Living and Working Conditions of the Pribilof Islands, Alaska,” U.S. Fisheries Leaflet 548, 
Feb. 1963. 

4 Dorothy Knee Jones, A Century of Servitude: Pribilof Aleuts under U.S. Rule (Washington, DC: 
University Press of America, 1980), 142; and Jones, citing personal communications with Mr. C. 
Howard Baltzo, Nov. 11, 1978. 

5 “Seattle Man Studied Seals With Soviets,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Nov. 13, 1960. 

6 Office Memorandum: “To Bureau of Commercial Fisheries Island Managers, St. George and St. Paul 
Islands,” Nov. 22, 1961, Fur-Seal Archives, NMML Library, Seattle, WA. 

7 Lawrence E. Davis, “Seal-Skin Harvest Due to Begin Soon,” New York Times, Aug. 27, 1964, 45. 

8 U.S. National Mite Collection History, http://www.sel.barc.usda.gov/acari/contents/history.html; 
Obituary, “Nathan Banks,” New York Times, Jan. 25, 1953, 84; and U.S. Federal Census, 1880-1930, 
Ancestry.com. 

9 http://www.sel.barc.usda/acari/content/history.html. 

10 Edward A. Preble and W. T. McAtee, North American Fauna 46 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1923), 130. 

11 Ibid., 130-59. 

12 Joseph P. Smith, ed., History of the Republican Party in Ohio (Chicago: Lewis, 1898), vol. 1, 366; 
Western Biographical Publishing, The Biographical Cyclopcedia and Portrait Gallery With An 
Historical Sketch of the State of Ohio (Cincinnati: Western Biographical, 1883), 612 [includes image 
of Milton Barnes and biography]; Penni Scialdone-Luntsford, Ancestry Word Tree: Scialdone. Abel 
Barnes genealogy, ID 195326577, from notes by Gilbert H. Barnes Carmel, Ancestry.com; National 
Organization of Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, Harrisburg, PA, http://www.suvcw.org; 
U.S. Census 1850-1900 for Cambridge, Columbus, and Westerville, OH; Ohio Division of Vital 
Statistics, Death Certificates and Index, Dec. 20, 1908-Dec. 31, 1953; State Archives Series 3094, 


173 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


Ohio Historical Society, 380. 

13 Smith, History of the Republican Party, 366-7; and National Organization of Sons of Union Veterans 
of the Civil War, Harrisburg, PA, http://www.suvcw.org (accessed Jan. 3, 2008). 

14 “Col. Barnes Dead,” obituary of Milton Barnes (1830-1895), Public Opinion News (Westerville, OH), 
June 6, 1895; “Obituary of Milton Barnes," Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, OH), June 3, 1895. Both 
obituaries were found in the Milton Barnes Civil War Collection, George Mason University Special 
Collections and Archives, Fairfax, VA. The manuscript noted in the quote has not been located and 
is assumed to be in the possession of a Barnes family member. 

15 Introductory statement from Archivist Dr. Robert Hawke’s typed 1891 “Letter Milton Barnes to 
Clarence L. Barnes.” The typed transcription of the Barnes letter and the original letter are located in 
the Milton Barnes Civil War Collection, George Mason University Special Collections & Archives, 
Fairfax, VA. Milton Barnes gave his sworn deposition at St. Paul Island, June 23, 1892, prior to leav¬ 
ing the Pribilof Islands and not after his return to Ohio in 1894 as stated in the last paragraph of 
the archivist’s introductory statement. A copy of the Barnes deposition is found in the U.S. Senate, 
Fur-Seal Arbitration, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, convened at Paris under the Treaty 
between the United States of America and Great Britain, concluded at Washington February 29, 

1892, for the determination of questions between the two governments concerning the jurisdictional 
rights of the United States in the waters of Bering Sea, vol. 3 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1895), 102; and 
in the appendix of Joseph Murray’s 1894 report found in U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents 
Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries and General Resources of Alaska, 55th Cong., 1st sess., H. Doc. no. 
92, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1898), 83. 

16 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 101. 

17 David Starr Jordan, Observations on the Fur Seals of the Pribilof Islands: Second Preliminary Report 
(Washington, DC: GPO, 1896), 25-28. 

18 “Bartlett, Edward Lewis (Bob), (1904-1968),” Library of Congress, Biographical Directory of 
the United States Congress, 1774-Present, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay. 
pl?index=B000201 (accessed Jan. 29, 2007). 

19 Jeffrey, Alaska: Who’s Here, 1955 (Anchorage), 17; and U.S. Census 1929, Fairbanks, AK. 

20 "Bartlett, Edward Lewis (Bob), (1904-1968),” Library of Congress, citing Dictionary of American 
Biography, and Claus M. Naske, Edward Lewis “Bob” Bartlett of Alaska: A Life in Politics (Fairbanks: 
University of Alaska Press, 1979). 

21 USFWS, Annual Report of Sealing Operations 1965, Pribilof Islands, Alaska, Dec. 31, 1965, 15; and 
“Willard Bowman—A Great Humanitarian,” Tundra Times, Dec. 10, 1975, 2. 

22 Obituary, “Mr. J. W. Beaman,” The Daily Record (Greensboro, NC), Dec 14, 1903; William Richard 
Cutter, ed., New England Families Genealogical Memorial; A Record of the Achievements of Her 
People in the Making of Commonwealths and the Founding of a Nation, vol. 3 (NY: Lewis Historical 
Publishing, 1914), 1186-8; and Ancestry.com. 

23 Betty John, Libby: The Sketches, Letters & Journal of Libby Beaman, Recorded in the Pribilof Islands, 
1879-1880. (Tulsa, OI<: Council Oak Books, 1987), 27-8; Amherst College, Biographical Record, 
Centennial Edition (1821-1921) (Amherst, MA: Fletcher and Young, 1927); Class of 1867 non-grad¬ 
uate list, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Amy Rupert, Archivist, biographical information nota¬ 
tion to Betty Lindsay, May 27, 2005; Obituary, “Mr. J. W. Beaman,” The Daily Record (Greensboro, 
NC), Dec. 14, 1903; Cutter, ed., New England Families Genealogical Memorial, vol. 3, 1186-8; and 
Ancestry.com. 

24 John, Libby, 37-8. 

25 Libby was not the first white woman to visit the islands. For example, the wives of Capt. Charles 
Bryant and Dr. Hugh McIntyre accompanied their husbands to St. Paul Island at least as early as 
1871. Betty John’s book exercised creative license about certain aspects of life and conditions on the 
island. For example, her mention of blue butterflies has not been confirmed and her confinement in 
her living quarters for over two months during the winter of 1880 is not substantiated by the Agent’s 
Logs (John, Libby, 159-168). Also, Libby’s diary stated that she and her husband departed St. Paul 
Island Aug. 3, 1880 (p. 197), whereas the St. Paul Island Agent’s Log stated that they departed on July 
30, 1880. 

26 John, Libby, 185. 

27 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: 
GPO, 1898), 136. 


174 



Biographies B 


28 BC Archives, Births, Obituary; http://web.city.victoria.bc.ca/archives/obituary; http://search.bcar- 
chives.gov.bc.ca. 

29 BC Archives, Vital Records and Census data. 

30 Further background information on the Canadian pelagic sealers can found in Peter Murray, The 
Vagabond Fleet (Sono Nis: Victoria, BC); Briton Cooper Busch, The War Against the Seals, A History 
of the North American Seal Fishery (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Univ. Press, 1985); and Gerald O. 
Williams, The Bering Sea Fur Seal Dispute, 1895-1911 (Juneau, AI<: Alaska Maritime, 1984). 

31 James K. Nesbitt, “Boscowitz Runs the Machine,” The Daily Colonist (Victoria, BC), Nov. 27, 1966, 

2; British Census 1881, Stoke, Surry, England, RG 11, 0777/20, 34; and Births (1872-1903), British 
Columbia Archives index. 

32 Nesbitt, “Boscowitz Runs the Machine,” 2 and 19. 

33 The Daily Colonist, November 27, 1966, 2. 

34 Nesbitt, “Boscowitz Runs the Machine,” 2 and 19. 

35 Ibid., 19. 

36 New York Times “Obituary,” June 17, 1895, 5, gave Mrs. Boscowitz’s maiden name as “Simons.” Other 
sources stated that her maiden name was “Simon.” 

37 New York Times, Mar. 30, 1902, http://www.familysearch.org. International Genealogical Index v. 5. 

38 Richard A. Pierce, Russian America: A Biographical Dictionary (Kingston, ON: Limestone Press, 
1990), 68-9. 

39 “Ward T. Bower Retires,” USFWS Information Service, Carson, 4236, Apr. 3, 1947—found in the 
NMML Library Reprint Files under “Bower.” 

40 AM’s refers to “morning,” a press release timed for the morning papers. 

41 “Ward T. Bower Retires,” USFWS Information Service. 

42 Willard L. Bowman Papers, 1952-1979 (includes photograph), University of Alaska Library, http:// 
www.lib.uaa.alaska.edu/archives (accessed May 23, 2005). 

43 Ibid. 

44 Tundra Times, Alaska, Dec. 10, 1975, 2 and 6. 

45 Ibid., 6. 

46 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1872, 135. 

47 Rutland, Vermont was the hometown of Dr. Hugh H. McIntyre, Superintendent for the Alaska 
Commercial Company. 

48 Ibid., May 8, 1879, 87. 

49 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1, 119. 

50 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1882, 269. 

51 Ibid., May 31, 1883, 298. 

52 Betty A. Lindsay and John A. Lindsay, Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Genealogy and Census, NOAA Tech. 
Memo. NOS ORR 18 (2009), 52. 

53 Ibid., 52. 

54 Ibid., 630. 

55 U.S. Congress, House, “Report from the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries of the House 
of Representatives," in The Fur-Seal and Other Fisheries of Alaska: Investigation of the Fur-Seal and 
Other Fisheries of Alaska. 50th Cong., 2nd sess., H. Rep. no. 3883 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1889), 
161. 

56 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1875, 298. 

57 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 102-3. 

58 U.S. Census 1880, 1900, and 1920 (Washington, DC); and “NOAA Profiles” (Eleanor Buynitzky) in 
Time/NWS Biographies, http://www.history.noaa.gOv/nwsbios/nwsbios_page7.html#e_buynitzky 
(accessed Dec. 27, 2008). 

59 Stephen Nestor Buynitzky family genealogy, http://awtc.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi (accessed 
Oct. 31, 2005). 

60 Brian Harris, “Historical Development of the Vacuum Coffee Pot,” BHA Enterprises, 2004, http:// 
www.baharris.org/coffee/History.htm. 

61 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 20-21. 

62 U.S. Congress, House, Committee of Ways and Means, Alaska Commercial Company, 44th Cong., 
1st sess., H. Rep. no. 623 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1876), 106-7. 

1 t 


175 



Is 

%L 



Water carrier in 1890’s era. Prior to the use of sleds and plumbing to transport water from the water 
sources on each island, water was carried daily in wooden casks on the backs of young girls and 
women. U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Seal and Salmon Fisheries, 1898, vol. 1, 328. NAA, Joseph Stanley- 

Brown Lantern Slide Coll., lot 54-255. 


176 














c 


Call, Dr. Samuel Johnson ( 1858 - 1909 ) 

Assistant Physician, Alaska Commercial Company, Pribilof Islands, 1890-1899, 1903- 
1905 


Genealogy 

One of ten children, Samuel Call was born February 
18, 1858, in Missouri to George Washington Call and 
Elizabeth B. (Johnson) Call, both natives of Kentucky. 
Samuel Call spent his young adult years (until age 21) in 
California. In 1880, he worked as a druggist while living 
in San Luis Obispo with the family of his sister, Susanna 
Booth. Later that year he left for Alaska, returning in 
1908 to Hollister, California, where Samuel Call died on 
February 6, 1909, at age 50. 1 



Biographical Sketch 

In 1891, Samuel Call assisted Dr. Sheldon Jackson with 
his project to import reindeer from Siberia to Alaska. In 
August 1899, he resigned from government service and 


opened a private medical practice in Nome, Alaska, where Samud Johmon Call (u s 
he lived until 1903, before returning to sea as surgeon on Treasury Dept., 1899, 29.) 
the USRC Thetis. Dr. Call was awarded the Congressional 

Gold Medal of Honor on June 28,1902, for his heroic service on the Arctic coast to rescue 
imperiled whalers in the 1897-98 Overland Relief Expedition to Point Barrow. 2 


r 


177 





Pribilof Islands: The People 



Egg-gathering party at Walrus Island, Pribilof Islands. (Alaska State Library, Samuel J. Call 
Photograph Coll., PC A 181.11.) 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

Dr. Samuel Call served as the Alaska Commercial Company physician at Unalaska in 
1880-1890, after which he served with the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service (USRCS) as an 
assistant physician during 1890-1899 and 1903-1905. Dr. Call worked aboard the USRC 
Bear, Thetis, and McCulloch— ships assigned to the Bering Sea. While with the USRCS, 
Dr. Call provided the Pribilof Islands with medical needs and supplies. 


Campbell, Neddie Burns (b. 1867 ) 

School Teacher, North American Commercial Company, St. George Island, 1910 
Genealogy 

Neddie Campbell was born on March 31, 1867, near Martinsburg in Berkeley County, 
West Virginia. 

Biographical Sketch 

Neddie Campbell was educated in West Virginia schools and graduated from Hampden 
Sidney College and Union Theological Seminary. He was a practicing preacher before his 
appointment on May 27, 1910, as teacher at St. George Island, where his yearly salary was 
$900. 3 


178 


















Biographies C ♦ Call - Chamberlain 


Chamberlain, Frederick Morton ( 1867 - 1921 ) 

Scientific Assistant, Naturalist, U.S. Fish Commission, 1897-1909 
U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, Bureau of Biological Survey, 1909-1913 
Naturalist, U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, Fur-Seal Service, St. Paul Island, 1913 


Genealogy 

Frederick Morton Chamberlain, son of Associate 
Judge Horace Chamberlain and Mary A. 
(Dickerson) Chamberlain, was born in June 1867 
at Lost Creek, Vigo County, Indiana. In April 1913, 
Frederick Chamberlain married, five months 
before his Pribilof Islands assignment. Frederick 
died August 17, 1921, at Kings Daughters Home 
for Incurables in Oakland, California, after suffer¬ 
ing eight years with tuberculosis. 4 

Biographical Sketch 



, , . , Frederick Morton Chamberlain. (S1A 

Fred Chamberlains early years were spent in 32 c.) 

Lost Creek, Indiana, where he was educated and 

worked on the family farm. He graduated from the University of Indiana June 17, 1896, 
with a BA degree in zoology. He studied with ichthyologists Carl Eigenmann and Barton 
W. Evermann at the University of Indiana before his appointment as scientific assistant 
with the U.S. Fish Commission in 1897. His position as assistant naturalist afforded 
him experience aboard the Fish Commission’s steamer Albatross to the Bering Sea, the 
Hawaiian Islands, and the South Pacific. In 1903, Chamberlain was appointed naturalist 
for the Albatross and charged with responsibility for the natural history collections gath¬ 
ered by members of the scientific research vessel. He participated in expeditions inves¬ 
tigating the Alaska salmon fisheries during 1901 and 1903 and a Hawaiian expedition in 
1902. His last tour was with Louis Agassiz’s Philippine expedition in 1907. Chamberlain 
resigned his post as naturalist for the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries in 1911 to accept the posi¬ 
tion of agent for the Alaskan salmon fisheries. Subsequently, he became naturalist and 
agent at St. Paul Island for the U.S. Department of Commerce in 1913. 5 


Chamberlain’s “many contributions to the marine sciences include pioneering studies 
of salmon and native fish populations in Alaska and California, collections of thousands 
of natural history specimens on board the Albatross, design and construction of collect¬ 
ing equipment, and his innovative application of photography in the study of fisheries.” 6 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

Newly appointed Agent Fred Chamberlain landed at St. Paul Island on July 13, 1913, 
and by July 15 had taken ill and become bedridden. On August 24, the island’s physician, 
Dr. McGovern, issued a diagnosis of consumption (tuberculosis). Dr. McGovern advised 
Chamberlain to leave as soon as possible if he had any desire to recover; otherwise he 


179 








Pribilof Islands: The People 


would likely perish within three months. 7 The cutter Manning arrived within a week of a 
request to move Mr. and Mrs. Chamberlain off-island. The Agent’s Log noted: 

Put Mr. Chamberlain in a cot with mattress and springs and hauled him to east landing 
with wagon and mules at 10:30 A.M., and carried him to MANNING in our surf boat. 
MANNING’S crew hoisted him aboard with blocks and tackle attached to the cot. The sea 
was smooth and the whole trip was made without a single jolt or shake up for the patient.* 

Philip Hatton, who began his Pribilof Islands career in 1911 as a teacher, assumed 
Chamberlain’s responsibilities as agent. Hatton would come under investigation within 
another year for gross malfeasance (see Alvin Whitney’s biography for additional details). 


Chichester, Harry Dennison (1872-1911) 

Assistant to Special Agent). Stanley-Brown, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Pribilof 
Islands, May-October 1892 

Agent, North American Commercial Company, 1893-1900 

Special Assistant, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. George Island, 1901-1909 

Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. Paul Island, 1910-1911 

Pribilof Islands Photographer and Author 

Genealogy 

Harry D. Chichester was born April 20, 1872, in Port Lavaca, Texas, son of Elijah Chich¬ 
ester (1846-1904) and grandson of the Reverend Elijah Chichester of Lansingburgh, New 
York. Harry’s mother was Maria (Brown) Chichester, born 1849 in Louisiana, of John 
Leopold Brown and Elizabeth Frances (Marr) Brown. In 1910, Harry Chichester married 
Emilie A. Perpall. Emilie Chichester died November 7, 1970, in Cincinnati, Ohio; 9 Harry 
Chichester died at St. Paul Island on May 31, 1911. 

Biographical Sketch 

Harry Chichester received a public school education and graduated from George 
Washington University medical school in 1910. He worked as a car accountant for the 
Southern Pacific Railroad and as a clerk for the Customs and Freight Department with 
the Mexican International Railroad before his experiences at the Alaska Fur-Seal Islands. 
His wife, Emilie A. Perpall Chichester, became a librarian in Brooklyn, New York, after 
returning from the Pribilof Islands following her husband’s death. 10 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Harry Chichester first came to Alaska as an assistant to Special Agent Joseph Stanley- 
Brown in 1892. He remained in service as agent for the Pribilof Islands lessee, the North 
American Commercial Company. Although his duty station was in Unalaska from May 
1893 to 1900, he frequented the Pribilofs as the company’s agent. In 1898, he published 
a book of his photographs entitled Seals and the Seal Islands. The American Museum 
of Natural History in New York City maintains an archival collection of some 347 of 


180 







Biographies C ♦ Chamberlain - Chichester 



Chichester’s photographs, taken from 1897 to 1905. The collection of eight-inch by ten- 
inch glass plates includes Alaska and Pribilof Islands subjects as well as subjects from 
elsewhere in North America, the Arctic, and the Yukon. 11 


On April 27, 1901, Chichester became assistant agent for Alaskan seal fisheries at 
a salary of $2,190 per annum. His first assignment was at St. George Island, where he 
served from 1901 to 1909. In that time he worked on the islands only during the sealing 
season and attended college during the off season. 


In 1906, Chichester had an encounter with a foreign vessel that speaks to the pres¬ 
ence of marauders in the islands. 


Notwithstanding the presence of so many Japanese schooners in the close vicinity of 
the islands, no actual attempts were made by them to raid the rookeries on St. George 
Island. One schooner, however, after having approached the St. George village landing the 
previous day, sent several boats ashore on September 5 at Garden Cove. Upon discovery 
Agent Chichester and a native guard proceeded to the cove and found only one man from 
the schooner ashore. On approach of Agent Chichester’s party this man, a Japanese, hailed 
the ship, which was close inshore, asking the captain of the schooner to come to the beach. 
The latter in a small boat manned by three sailors came ashore in response to the hail, 
and all were placed under arrest with the man already ashore. The captain stated to Mr. 
Chichester that previous to this several of his boats had landed and taken water and ballast 
from the shore to the schooner. 


These prisoners were taken by the revenue cutter Perry to Unalaska, and thence by the 
Dora to Valdez ... they were released for the reason that that portion of the Revised 


Harry D. Chichester, seated on the right. (AMNH Special Collections, Chichester Coll., 
HDC266, neg. 034951.) 


181 
















Harry Chichester with rifle, hunting on sea ice, St. Paul Island. (AMNH Special 
Collections, Chichester Coll., HDC274, neg. 034946.) 




Harry Chichester ice sailing at St. Paul Island Lagoon. (AMNH Special Collections, 
Chichester Coll., HDC275, neg. 034878.) 


182 






















Biographies C ♦ Chichester 


Statutes which they violated (section 1959), which forbids landing on the islands without a 
permit, unfortunately, carried no penalty other than summary removal from the islands. 12 

In 1910, Harry Chichester returned to St. Paul Island as the newly married Dr. 
Chichester, having graduated as a Doctor of Medicine from George Washington 
University on June 9 of that year. Within a year’s time, Dr. Chichester would succumb in 
a tragic accident. 

On May 31, 1911, a distressing accident occurred on St. Paul Island. Dr. Harry D. 

Chichester, assistant agent, and Dr. Walter L. Hahn, the naturalist on the seal islands, with 
their wives and a native, Neon Tetof [sic; see Tetoff’s biography], while sailing on the lagoon 
were unable to put about successfully in the high wind and by the capsizing of their boat 
were exposed to the ice-cold water for more than an hour. All were alive when rescued, and 
Mrs. Chichester and Mrs. Hahn, by the diligent efforts of the physician were resuscitated. 

The native also survived, but Dr. Chichester and Dr. Hahn, necessarily left without medical 
attention for a time, succumbed to the effects of the exposure. 

In addition to looking after all business and administrative affairs of the islands ... Dr. 

Chichester ... having graduated in medicine in the preceding spring and during his 
medical course he had given special attention to those diseases, such as pulmonary 
infections which are most prevalent among the Aleuts. These studies and his intimate 
knowledge of the conditions on the seal islands led him to believe that all infectious 
diseases can be completely eradicated in those restricted localities, and, inspired by this 
ambition and hope, he entered vigorously upon the securing of the vital and statistical data 
necessary to enable him to formulate a definite method of procedure. The progress he had 
made was so encouraging as to induce the belief that had he lived, Dr. Chichester would 
have realized his ambition completely. Unquestionably, he would have been able greatly to 
improve health conditions on the Pribilofs. 13 


BRIDE IS AN ARCTIC WIDOW 

Charles C. Perpall, a Government weigher, living at 100 Marlborough Road, Brooklyn, received 
a telegram yesterday from his daughter, who, eleven months ago, left home to marry Dr. Harry 
Dennison Chichester and go with him to Alaska. The telegram told of the death of her husband, 
and said she is now one of the few inhabitants of one of the Pribilof Islands in Bering Sea. She 
will return to Brooklyn as soon as the Government agents arrive on their Summer tour. Miss 
Perpall was a student at Packer Institute in Brooklyn when she met Dr. Chichester, who then 
was a student in George Washington University. He received his degree last June, and was then 
appointed by the Government as Governor [Agent] of one of the Pribilof Islands. Rather than be 
separated from him, Miss Perpall and he were married last July in St. Paul’s Church, New York 
City, and the couple started on their 5,000 mile trip. With them was a scientist named Hahn. A few 
days ago a dispatch to Washington notified the Government that Hahn had been killed in a boat 
accident. Yesterday Mr. Perpall received the telegram from his daughter. 

The island is cut off from communication with the world from October until June, so no definite 
news of the accident can be learned until the arrival of the first mail ship about the middle of July. 

New York Times, “Bride is an Arctic Widow,” June 22, 1911, 1. 


183 





Pribilof Islands: The People 



Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries. 

Snapshotting an old Beach-Master. 

This plate was recovered, although the photographer was drowned 
on the treacherous shores of the Pribilof Islands the very 
day the picture was taken. 


Chichester’s last image of seals. (Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 1912, 79.) 


Chomski, Joseph (1946-1993) 

Attorney, represented Pribilovian claims against the United States 
Genealogy 

Joseph Chomski was born in New York City on December 2, 1946, to Dr. Isaac Chomski 
and his wife, Marsha. Joseph Chomski married Kathleen Brown, and they raised two 
sons and a daughter. Joseph Chomski died on March 18, 1993, at Georgetown University 
Hospital; he had resided in Bethesda, Maryland. 14 

Biographical Sketch 

Joseph Chomski’s father, as an official physician to the Israeli Consulate and the United 
Nations, attended to many Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Golda Meir. Joseph 
Chomski’s mother, Marsha, died at New York City on March 30, 1993, a week after the 
death of her son. 15 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

The following obituary placed in the New York Times summarized Joseph Chomski’s 
involvement with the Pribilof Islands. 


184 









Biographies C ♦ Chichester - Christoffers 


Joseph Chomski, 46; Aided Alaska Natives 

Joseph Martin Chomski, a Washington lawyer who was a representative of the interests 
of Alaska natives, died Thursday at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington. He 
was 46 and lived in Bethesda, Maryland. A member of the Washington law firm, Birch, 
Horton, Bittner & Cherot since 1976, Mr. Chomski represented a variety of Alaska’s 
native corporations as disadvantaged businesses under Federal small-business preference 
programs. In 1988, he represented Pribilof Islands natives when they won a major 
claim from the Department of Interior for the unreimbursed use of property. He was 
also an architect of the Pribilof Islands Trust Agreement in 1983, which preserved the 
natural habitat and furthered the development of the islands’ infrastructure. A principal 
participant in drafting the 1983 amendments to the Fur Seal Act, Mr. Chomski served as 
American adviser to the North Pacific Fur Seal Treaty negotiations in 1987 and 1988. He 
was also counsel for the Alaska Teamsters Union Pension Trust for many years. Born in 
New York City, he graduated from George Washington University, where he also received a 
law degree in 1970. 16 


Christoffers, Harry John (1888-1939) 

Scientific Assistant, Warden, U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Fairbanks, 
Alaska, 1910-1913 

Agent, U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Fisheries, St. Paul Island, 1914-1917 
Superintendent, Pribilof Islands, 1918-1939 

Genealogy 

Harry John Christoffers was the only son of railroad 
station agent Harry G. Christophers 17 of New York 
City and Christina (McVicar) Christoffers. Harry J. 

Christoffers married Elsie Tatiana Kokrine (1891 — 

1961) in 1918 at Tacoma, Washington. Elsie was born 
at Kokrines, Alaska, to Henry Gregory Kokrine, a 
Finnish fur trader of the Yukon River gold rush era, 
and his third wife, Tatiana (Teyotaa) Larion Kokrine. 

Elsie’s father had immigrated to Alaska during the 
Russian-American era and chose to remain after the 
Alaska Purchase. Her mother, Teyotaa Larion Kokrine, 

“was of Athabascan, probably Koyukon heritage.” 18 
According to family oral tradition, Teyotaa Larion was 
the daughter of an Alaskan chief, a point noted in a 
1946 news column. 19 Missionary Robert McDonald 
in his journal of July 14, 1872, referred to Larion as a 
chief of the “Koyookuk Indians” belonging to Fort Nulatke, near Fort St. Michael, on the 
Yukon River. 20 Harry J. and Elise Christophers had one son, Harry John Christoffers Jr. 
Harry J. Christophers Sr. died at Bellingham, Washington, September 8, 1939. 21 



Harry John Christoffers, 1911. 
(Univ. Wisconsin Archives, j439.) 


185 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

Harry John Christoffers Jr., as noted in various Agents’ Log entries, spent many of his 
early years in the Pribilof Islands with his parents. Agent Watson Colt Allis (see Allis’ 
biography) paid tribute to the child in a 1938 interview with author Barrett Willoughby: 

The taking of the annual seal census is not a job for a timid person, even though the count 
is facilitated by the use of cameras. The rookeries are laid off in sectors, which are then 
photographed. The pictures are shot from exactly the same angle each year, to assure a 
true comparison. This is made easy by marking suitable boulders in each sector with white 
symbols, on which the camera can be accurately aligned. On the bachelor hauling grounds, 
the photographer is never in any danger. But getting down into the sacred harems guarded 
by warrior bulls is a feat that calls for steady nerves, sharp eyes, and the ability to leap long 
distances on short notice. The present superintendent, Harry Christoffers, prefers to do 
this work personally. He spends hours sitting quietly among the battling bulls, “getting 
acquainted”; moving only with the utmost deliberation. To guard against unexpected 
attacks from the rear, he must take an assistant whose nerves are as steady as his own. 

The best “man” he has found for this hazardous job of lookout is his own small son who, 
accustomed to seals from infancy, is utterly without fear of the beasts. 22 

Harry John Christoffers received numerous accolades for his work spanning twenty- 
five years as a Pribilof Islands agent. Two examples: 

Mr. Christoffers was born at London, Dane County, Wisconsin, on August 13, 1888. Within 
a few weeks after his graduation from the University of Wisconsin in 1910, he entered 
the Bureau of Fisheries employ as scientific assistant. About a year later he was appointed 
warden in Alaska, and throughout the subsequent 28 years of his service was identified 
with the Alaska work. 

For 16 years he was in direct charge of fur-seal operations centering at the Pribilof Islands, 
the greatest activity of this kind in the world. Under his administration, the herd more 
than trebled in size, increasing from about 650,000 to over 2,000,000 animals, and at the 
same time yielding upward of 700,000 skins. Unquestionably, he was a leading authority on 
Alaska fur seals and established a wide reputation for his contribution to the conservation 
of a great wildlife resource. 


.. . 



H. J. Christoffers 


Field of Lupin on Mist Island of St. Paul 


Harry J. Christoffers and son Harry Jr. in field of lupine, St. Paul Island. (Willoughby, 
1940, Alaska Holiday, 223.) 


186 





Biographies C ♦ Christoffers 




Elsie Christoffers on St. Paul Island. (Courtesy 
William Whalley.) 


Harry John Christoffers Jr. on St. Paul Island. 
(Courtesy Henry Christoffers.) 


During the administration of Mr. Christoffers not only was there a great increase in 
the size but also extraordinary improvements were made to the plant and equipment 
at the Pribilof Islands, such as the erection of many new dwellings and other important 
structures, the building of roads and wharves, and, in fact, almost complete rehabilitation 
of the establishment. A further improvement was the addition of the seagoing tender 
Penguin for the transportation of supplies and personnel between Seattle and the Islands. 

Mr. Christoffers made trips each season on this vessel and took particular interest and 
pride in the fine performance of the arduous service by this craft.... He had a broad 
human understanding and sympathy, a notable example of which was his interest in the 
more than 400 native inhabitants of the Pribilof Islands. They had the highest regard for 
him, recognizing that always he was eminently fair and just and endeavored constantly to 
further their welfare. 23 

In a 1940 annual report, Christoffers was remembered: 

To his constructive and untiring efforts, more than to those of any other single person, may 
be attributed the excellent results achieved in the management of the fur-seal industry and 
the improvements in housing and other conditions for the welfare of the natives. 24 

In researching Harry John Christoffers Sr., the authors made contact with his grand¬ 
son, Henry J. Christoffers, PhD in mathematics from the University of Chicago. Dr. 
Christoffers brought forward a collection of 16 mm and 35 mm movie films, presumably 
taken by his grandfather during the 1930s. NOAA acquired these films and converted 
them to a digital format. Many depict natural history subjects at the Pribilofs, and to a 
lesser extent scenes of human activity. In 2009, NOAA donated the original films to the 
National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, Maryland. 


187 









Pribilof Islands: The People 


Christofferson, Albert (b. 1876) 

Engineer in charge of construction, U.S. Department of Commerce, Pribilof Islands, 
1918-1938 


Biographical Sketch 

Albert Christofferson emigrated from Norway 
in 1904 at the age of twenty-nine and settled 
in San Francisco, California. According to the 
1920 U.S. Census, he worked as a fish inspec¬ 
tor. Albert Christofferson never married, and 
retired to California following his Pribilof 
Islands career. 25 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

Albert Christofferson arrived at the Pribilof 
Islands in 1918 as a seal by-products expert, 
scientist, and engineer. He supervised the 
construction of the St. Paul Island seal carcass by-products plant, the waterworks, and 
electrical operations, all vital parts of the growing infrastructure of the Pribilof Islands 
seal industry. During his twenty years of government service, Christofferson worked on 
both islands, but his principal residence was on St. Paul Island from early spring until late 
fall of each year. 


By-products plant, St. Paul Island, 1921. 
(Photo: Albert Christoffersen. G Dallas Hanna 
Coll., California Academy of Sciences, 41.) 



Clark, Ezra Westcote II (1839-1915) 

Chief U.S. Revenue Marine Service, 1878-1885 

Assistant Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. George Island, 1898-1900 
Assistant Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. Paul Island, 1901-1902 
Assistant Agent, U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, St. George Island, 1903, 1904, 
1907-1912 

U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, St. Paul Island, 1905-1906 
Genealogy 

Ezra Westcote Clark II was born in Granville, Licking County, Ohio, on January 11, 
1839, to the Reverend Ezra W. Clark (1800-1871) and Mary Patrick (Stiles) Clark (1805- 
1885). Ezra Westcote Clark II married Sylvia Ann Nodine (1845-1923) at Philadelphia, 
Pennsylvania, on October 10, 1870. Ezra and Sylvia Clark had four sons: Eugene Bradley 
(1873-1942), engineer and founder of Clark Equipment Company, “pioneer in the use of 
electric furnaces in steel making;” Ezra Westcote III, vice-president of Clark Equipment 
Company and designer of the Clark forklift truck, pilot during WWII, and a consultant 
for materiel handling for the Normandy Invasion; Charles Cleveland, who worked for 


188 








Biographies C ♦ Christofferson - Clark 


the U.S. Department of Agriculture and served as 
Assistant Chief of the U.S. Weather Bureau, now 
known as the National Weather Service, National 
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NWS/ 
NOAA); and John Howard, who died at an early 
age. 26 Ezra Westcote Clark II died on February 24, 
1915, at Chevy Chase, Maryland. He is interred 
at Arlington National Cemetery. Sylvia Clark died 
in 1923, and their son Ezra III died in 1949. 27 


Biographical Sketch 


A notarized affidavit dated March 18, 1905, sub¬ 
sequently attached to Ezra Clark II’s request for a 
Civil War pension (filed March 10,1905), summa¬ 
rized his Civil War military career. Clark served 
in the 1st Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment, 

Company A, the 34th Ohio Volunteer Infantry 
Regiment, and the 34th Ohio Regular Infantry 
from April 1861 to October 1865. Beginning at 
age 22, Clark rose from private to an appointment 
by President Lincoln as captain and assistant ad¬ 
jutant general of volunteers under Brigadier General Alfred Duffie of the 1st Calvary 
Brigade, 8th Army Corps. He continued to serve as assistant adjutant general under vari¬ 
ous commands, including under Major General Winfield S. Hancock, where he “partici¬ 
pated in the pursuit and capture of the murderers of President Lincoln.” 28 He ended his 
military career in 1865 with the service rank of Brevet Major. 


Ezra Westcote Clark II, circa 1865. 
(Courtesy Ted Jackson.) 



Ezra Westcote Clark II became a Washington, D.C., attorney. He worked for the 
U.S. Department of the Treasury from May 3, 1871, until March 6, 1886. His first direct 
acquaintance with the Seal Islands occurred during his duty as Chief of the Revenue 
Marine Bureau, a position he held in Washington, D.C., from 1878 to 1885. The Board 
of Geographical Names designated the Clark River in Alaska after him in honor of his 
service, which led to discoveries in the new Territory of Alaska. 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

Secretary of the Treasury William Windom opened bids on February 21, 1890, for a new 
twenty-year commercial harvest lease of the Seal Islands. Bid no. 7, one of twelve bids, 
was submitted by Ezra Clark, along with associates Bateman, Lemon, and others. Despite 
the Clark investor group’s offer “to pay a bonus of $120,000 in addition to the rental of 
$50,000.00 per annum and the tax of $2.00 per skin,” 29 they lost to the North American 
Commercial Company of New York and San Francisco, as described in a New York Times 
article: 

[The North American Commercial Company won] ... exclusive privilege of taking fur seals 
upon the islands of St. Paul and St. George, Alaska, for a period of twenty years from May 


189 



















Pribilof Islands: The People 


1, 1890. The directors of the company are: Lloyd Tevis, Henry Cowell, Matthias Meyer, and 
Isaac Liebes, all of San Francisco, and Albert Miller of Oakland, Cal., D.O. [Darious Ogden] 

Mills of New York is a stockholder of the company. Its capital stock is $2,000,000.00. 

The company proposes to pay an annual rental of $60,000.00 for the lease, and, in addition 
to the revenue tax of $2 upon each seal skin, it will pay $7.62 Vi for each fur-seal skin that 
shall be taken and shipped by it. The company also proposes to pay 50 cents per gallon 
for each gallon of seal oil; to furnish, free of charge to the native inhabitants of the islands 
of St. Paul and St. George, annually, such quantity of dried salmon as the Secretary of the 
Treasury may direct; to furnish, under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, the 
natives the salt and barrels necessary for preserving meat. So far as may be practicable 
and consistent with the interests of the company, it will encourage the dressing, dyeing, 
and marketing of sealskins within the United States, and operate its lease in the interest of 
American citizens. 

The annual revenue to the Government under this lease, on the basis of 100,000 seals per 
annum will be about $1,000,000 as against about $300,000 under the present lease to the 

Despite or because of this turn of events, 
Clark arrived in the Pribilof Islands on May 
10, 1898, at age fifty-nine, with his wife, 
Sylvia. The majority of his thirteen-year ser¬ 
vice was on St. George Island; he worked on 
St. Paul Island only during the years 1901- 
02 and 1905-06. His duties “under the direc¬ 
tion of the agent” included taking charge of 
matters “pertaining to the fur-seal fisheries 
of Alaska, including relations with lessees 
of the seal islands and the natives, guarding 
the seal herds and custody of buildings and 
Government property.” 31 The Clarks stayed 
throughout some years on St. George Island; 
other years they returned in the off season to the States. During his tenure, Ezra Clark 
made entries in the Agent’s Log for whichever island he was assigned to. His wife taught 
the “junior school children” 32 according to St. George Island Agent’s Log entries. 

Ezra Clark presented the idea of bringing reindeer to the islands to Secretary Metcalf 
of the Department of Commerce and Labor in a letter to Washington, D.C., dated March 
24, 1905. 

Sir: I beg the attention of the department to the following statement and recommendation: 

For some years past the Government has been engaged in establishing a herd of reindeer in 
northern Alaska. The object has been accomplished by importing the original stock from 
Siberia and augmenting it by propagation at the several Alaska stations. The herd now 
numbers over 8,000, distributed at ten or a dozen stations. The purpose of the undertaking 
is to furnish a means of subsistence for the simple natives of our most northern coasts in 
place of the wild game which is being driven out by the encroachment of civilization. 

The reindeer afford to the northern natives food and clothing, and furnish beasts of burden 
to transport the people and their supplies over the frozen tundra. The female deer yield a 
very rich milk. Introducing the reindeer is a beneficent work. 


Alaska Commercial Company. 30 



Ezra Westcote Clark’s gravestone. (Courtesy 
Beverly H. Ray.) 


190 







Biographies C ♦ Clark 


The object of this communication is to recommend that this department take steps to have 
a small band of reindeer transferred to each of the seal islands, with the purpose of creating 
a herd as a source of subsistence of the native residents of those islands. In view of the 
steady diminution of the seal herd, some provision is likely to become necessary in the not 
distant future. In any event, the enterprise would be a good one from an economical point 
of view. The reindeer would increase rapidly, without cost for food or superintendence. The 
presence of Government agents the year round would insure the necessary oversight. 

The mosses and grasses of the seal islands, of which there is a great abundance, are of the 
precise character required by these animals. There is no question of the adaptability of the 
islands to the raising of reindeer. Examination by experts from the north shows them to be 
especially fitted for the purpose. The animals are tractable and gentle, and no disturbance 
of other animals on the island need be apprehended from their presence. The seals are 
not disturbed by horses, cattle, or sheep, which have run loose on the islands from time 
immemorial. 

The Bureau of Education, under the Interior Department, had charge of the reindeer 
business in Alaska, and Dr. Sheldon Jackson, of the said bureau, the general agent of 
education for Alaska, has immediate charge of it. The writer has conferred with this 
gentleman on the subject, who sees no obstacle to the plan here recommended. The 
revenue cutters have always transported the reindeer from Siberia, and may be availed of to 
bring down from northern Alaska the few required to form the nucleus of a herd for each 
seal island. 

I therefore respectfully recommend that a letter be addressed to the honorable the 
Secretary of the Interior, requesting that a small herd of reindeer, preferable 50 to 75 
females, with the necessary proportion of males, be transferred from the Government herd 
in Alaska to the seal islands of the Pribilof group, an equal number to each of the islands of 
St. Paul and St. George. 

It is understood that no expense will be involved in this measure, as the revenue cutter 
would render this service while in the performance of her regular cruising, and the reindeer 
are now owned by the Government. 

Very respectfully, 

Ezra W. Clark 

Assistant Agent Alaskan Fur-Seal Service 33 

The Department apparently accepted Clark’s concept, as on August 31, 1911, twenty- 
five reindeer—twenty-one cows (does) and four bulls—were introduced on St. Paul Island 
and the next day twelve cows and three bulls were delivered to St. George. 34 The herds 
multiplied on each island, but poaching during and after WWII and in particular harsh 
weather brought the Pribilof herds to extinction by 1950. 35 However, reindeer were suc¬ 
cessfully reintroduced to St. Paul and St. George islands in 1951 and 1980, respectively. 

An article appeared in the Washington Star describing the Clarks’ life in the Pribilof 
Islands, probably based on a letter from Sylvia Clark to a family member in Washington, 
D.C.: 

At age 73, Ezra Clark’s tenure in the Seal Islands concluded, two years after termina¬ 
tion of the North American Commercial Company lease in 1910. 




191 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


She’s from Washington and Lives Up On a Seal Island 

St. Paul and St. George are the homes of nearly all the seals remaining in existence and they 
are about 1,800 miles west of the entrance to Puget Sound and about 200 northwest of the 
Aleutian Islands, beginning at Unimak Pass. St. George, which is the smaller of the two, being 
about six by twelve miles in extent, is forty miles from St. Paul, and it has a population of about 
100 Aleuts, and four or five whites, consisting of Maj. Clark and his wife, a physician, and two 
or three clerks of the North American Commercial Co., which controls the seal business, and 
has stores and warehouses on both islands. The little village of St. George consists of twenty- 
five or thirty houses, including the company’s buildings, the agent’s house and a Greek church. 
There are no other houses on the islands, and Mrs. Clark is the only white woman. Her home is 
a small cottage of small rooms, very cozy and comfortable, with books and pictures and a fine 
outlook over the sea. She does no cooking in her own house, as the company officials take their 
meals at the company house near by. Mrs. Clark’s nearest neighbor is the wife of the agent on 
St. Paul, who is less lonely because she has with her two small children, Mrs. Clark’s children 
being grown and having their own homes in the states. There is no communication between 
the islands except by one of the company’s ships and by revenue cutters, as other ships are not 
permitted to visit the islands. These ships come only in the summer, and from October until 
June Mrs. Clark does not expect to see any one or hear anything from the United States, or to 
send word home, no matter what happens. Sickness, death, disaster may come to her far off in 
that forbidding sea or may visit her own at home, but no word may come or go until navigation 
is resumed. St. George is absolutely without trees, but its rolling surface and mountains, 1,000 
feet high, are beautifully green with coarse grass and moss, wild flowers of brilliant hues dot the 
level stretches near the sea. Blue foxes abound, and over the rocks at the water’s edge thousands 
and thousands of seals in ceaseless activity disport themselves noisily day and night from June 
until December, while millions of water fowl fill the air and the sea and flutter about the cliffs. 
Three hundred days in the year the weather is dark and dismal, and fogs hide the islands for 
days at a time. The cold is never excessive, but the winter storms are severe, and terrific gales 
sweep over sea and land. Tnere is no harbor, and ships come to anchor a mile or more from 
shore. 36 


Clark, George A. (1864-1918) 

Secretary, Fur-Seal Commission, 1896-1898 
Professor at Stanford University 

U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, Special Investigations of Fur Seals, 1909 and 1912-1913 
Genealogy and Biographical Sketch 

George A. Clark was born in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, in 1864. George A. Clark died 
April 27, 1918. 37 

Biographical Sketch 

Clark graduated from the University of Minnesota and served as Academic Secretary of 
Stanford University during the years 1891-1918. 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

George A. Clark was Secretary of the Bering Sea Fur-Seal Commission (1896-1898) 
headed by David Starr Jordan. The Commission directed the Fur-Seal Investigations of 
1896-1897. Reporting activities continued through 1898. Clark later became involved 


192 







__Biographies C ♦ Clark 

with other special investigations of the seal herds for the Bureau of Fisheries in 1909 and 
1912-1913. 

James Macoun, a scientist representing the Canadian government on the commis¬ 
sion, cited an incident involving George Clark that recounts a challenge facing scientists, 
then and now, studying the Pribilof Island fur-seal herds during their breeding period: 

on one occasion last year when we were counting pups a bull chased Mr. Clarke [sic], Dr. 

Jordans assistant, and his retreat being cut off he jumped from a low cliff into the sea rather 
then attempt to defend himself against the enraged bull. 38 

St. Paul Island Agent Joseph Crowley commented on George Clark’s dedication and 
tenacity during the 1896-1897 fur-seal investigations: 

June 24 [1897] Thursday 

Mr. Clark, Secretary to Dr. Jordan, on behalf of the American Commission on the Seal 
question, is the busiest man on the Island, and certainly one of the closest of observers. 

There is no doubt of his knowing the day of landing of all the mother seals at present on the 
rookeries within an hours walk of the village; the birthday of every pup seal up to date, on 
the same rookeries, and the cause of the death of all of them that have died thus far! Late at 
night, and early in the morning and, all day, he is out on some rookery observing seal life, 
nor does he ever complain of being tired, although he walks so much over the roughest of 
rough ground for many miles daily. 39 

During 1912 and 1913, Professor George Clark of Stanford University revisited the 
Pribilof Islands, with support from the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, to map the seal 
rookeries. Several days before Clark’s arrival on St. Paul Island in 1913, he sent a telegram 
to St. Paul Island Agent Walter Lembkey concerning a trip to the islands by Henry Wood 
Elliott and his stenographer, A. J. Gallagher: 

Commissioner directs avoiding friction and facilitating their work which is to be shared 
in by Chamberlain and myself [Clark] or two Department representatives. Full Records to 
be kept and signed in duplicate. Hope operations can await our arrival. Inform [Assistant 
Agent] Proctor [on St. George Island]. 40 

Renowned fur-seal naturalist and conservationist Henry Wood Elliott had been 
sent by Chairman Rothermel of the Congressional Committee of Expenditures in the 
Department of Commerce to conduct an independent investigation of the fur-seal herd. 
He and Gallagher had arrived on July 9, 1913, aboard the Tahoma . 41 Agent Lembkey ap¬ 
parently was unaware of the particulars of Elliott’s mission, as attested by Lembkey’s 
entry into the Agent’s Log: 

Elliott, whose connection with the much-vexed “seal question,” is well known, comes under 
some sort of authority derived so far as I can gather from the Congressional Committee of 
Expenditures in the Department of Commerce to investigate seal life. Mr. Gallagher, a most 
pleasant gentleman, is a reporter for the Congressional committee and seems to be here for 
the purpose of taking notes as dictated by Mr. Elliott. 42 

The day before Professor Clark’s arrival, Lembkey received instructions from Bureau 
of Fisheries Commissioner Hugh B. Smith that clarified Clark’s telegram: they were to 
conduct a corroborating investigation alongside that of Elliott and Gallagher. At that 
point Elliott and Gallagher had been in the field for several days. Agent Lembkey found 
Elliott and Gallagher at the Lagoon Rookery (which no longer exists), where he informed 


193 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


them of his instructions. Elliott at that point made known his feelings about Lembkey’s 
instructions as well as his feelings toward Clark, as recorded by Agent Lembkey: 

I informed Mr. Elliott courteously of my instructions from the Commissioner and 
stated that I was there in pursuance of those instructions, with the idea of sharing in 
any investigation they may make until the arrival of Mr. Chamberlain [see Frederick 
Chamberlain biography] and Mr. Clark which I expected would be tomorrow. Mr. Elliott 
immediately went off into what might be described only as a tantrum. He stated that he 
was here as the representative of a Committee of Congress to make an entirely independent 
investigation: that if Mr. Clark wished to come along he could do so; or he could go to hell, 
just as he pleased. That he had a personal antipathy to Clark because the latter had been 
writing vituperative letters about him for two years and that Clark was an ignorant person 
and could not be allowed to check up Elliott’s work. I was forced to reply to Mr. Elliott that 
I would be obliged to carry out the instructions of my superior officer, and that if Mr. Clark 
was not here I would accompany him, furthermore that in accompanying him I would 
not go to hell. Elliott stated that he had not intended to make any reference to me ... that 
he meant Mr. Clark wholly; I told him that Mr. Clark was an associate of mine and that I 
objected strongly to the use of such a term in connection with him. He persisted in talking 
of interference with his work and continued in an irrational and passionate manner, in 
spite of my repeated assurance that the whole object of the instructions was to have made 
a careful and impersonal investigation by both parties, as the result of which an agreed 
statement of facts would be prepared to and signed by both sides. He told me he would not 
submit to any joint investigation ... and that he would not enter into any joint work with 
Clark or anyone. 43 

The Agent’s Log thereafter offered no comment on relations between Clark and 
Elliott, except that Clark went to meet Elliott at Northeast Point the evening of July 14, 
and returned without Elliott the following afternoon. Elliott and Gallagher proceeded 
to St. George Island on July 17 without Clark. Following their return to St. Paul Island 
on July 19, only one other encounter between Elliott and Clark was noted in the Agent’s 
Log. Although of little significance, it sustained the lack of respect Elliott held for Clark. 44 
Clark, Elliott, Gallagher, and Lembkey departed St. Paul Island on July 30, with Clark 
debarking at St. George Island to continue his assignment, which included drafting topo¬ 
graphical maps of the rookeries and seal harems on both islands. Clark’s highly accurate 
maps were not recognized as such until biologists Wilfred H. Osgood, Edward A. Preble, 
and George H. Parker published them as part of their 1914 investigations. 45 


Clark, Harry N. (b. i860) 

Sealing Gang Boss, Teacher, Storekeeper, Alaska Commercial Company, St. George 
Island, 1884-1889 

Biographical Sketch 

Harry N. Clark was among the many Vermonters who through apparent common asso¬ 
ciations became involved with the Pribilof Islands fur-seal industry, and subsequently the 
Napa Valley wine industry developed by Seal Islands luminaries Gustave Niebaum and 
Hamden McIntyre. 


194 




Biographies C ♦ Clark - Coues 


Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Harry Clark deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration on May 16, 1892, before Notary 
Public R. Hilderbrandt in the County of Tehama, California: 

I am 32 years old, a native of Vermont, and now a resident of Vina, Tehama County Cal., 
and by occupation foreman of vineyard cultivation at Governor Stanford’s Vina Ranch. 

From 1884 to 1889, inclusive, I was in the employ of the Alaska Commercial Company of 
San Francisco, on St. George Island, Alaska, engaged through each sealing season as boss 
of a gang of seal hunters and in the winter, excepting that of 1886 and 1887, as teacher and 
storekeeper on that island. 

My work as the leader of the "sealing gang” gave me as perfect opportunity as could be had 
for studying the habits and peculiarities of the seal and determining the best manner of 
caring for them. 

I was reared on a farm, and have been familiar from boyhood with the breeding of 
domestic animals, and particularly with the rearing and management of young animals; 
hence a comparison of the young seals with the young of our common domestic species is 
most natural. From my experience with both I am able to declare positively that it is easier 
to manage and handle young seals than calves or lambs. 46 


Coues, Elliott (1842-1899) 

Ornithologist and author of the first PribilofIslands ornithology record 


Genealogy 

Elliott Coues was born at Portsmouth, New 
Hampshire, in 1842 to Samuel Elliott Coues and 
Charlotte Haven (Ladd) Coues. Elliott Coues married 
twice, first Jane Augusta McKenney and then Mary 
Emily Bates. Elliott Coues had no children. Elliott 
Coues died in 1899 while doing research for his last 
publication. 4 

Biographical Sketch 

Elliott Coues received his MD degree from George 
Washington University in 1863, and served as as¬ 
sistant surgeon during the Civil War. His interest in 
birds as a youth led him away from his medical career 
into the field of ornithology, which became his life’s 
work. 



Elliott Coues. (Courtesy Library of 
Congress, Coues-3a43734.) 


Coues’ assignments in the army took him to various outposts in the West at a time when it 
was as yet little affected by civilization. He was stationed at Fort Whipple, Arizona, in 1864; 
at Fort Macon, North Carolina, in 1869-70; at Fort Randall, Dakota, in 1873; and he was 
appointed naturalist and secretary of the United States Northern Boundary Commission, 
1873-76. Wherever he was located he made collections, discovering a number of hitherto 
unknown bird species and securing a vast amount of information for later publications. 
Realizing that the exploration of the West had so increased the knowledge of its 


195 












Pribilof Islands: The People 


ornithology as to render all general works on the subject out of date, he conceived and 
published, in 1872, his famous Key to North American Birds.™ 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Elliott Coues’ Ornithology of the Prybilov Islands (1875) represented the first written 
scientific study of birds at St. Paul and St. George islands. He identified the specimens 
provided by Henry Wood Elliott and relied on Elliott’s 1872-73 field notes to write his 
important study. 49 

In 1875, J. E. Harting of Great Britain published The Fauna of the Prybilov Islands, 
which included excerpts of Coues’ Ornithology of the Prybilov Islands as well as some 
material about mammals found in Report on the Prybilov Group or Seal Islands of Alaska 
by Henry Wood Elliott (1873). Secretary of the Treasury Richardson had pulled Henry 
Elliott’s report because he found some of the naturalist’s denigrating comments about 
both the government and the Alaska Natives too offensive for publication. Henry Elliott 
revised the offensive material and the document was published under different titles in 
subsequent years (e.g. Elliott 1873 and Elliott 1881). 


Creighton, Elmer Ellsworth Farmer (1873-1928) 

Assistant, Fur-Seal Commission, 1897 
Genealogy 

Elmer Creighton was born on April 10, 1873, in California to William Coburn Farmer 
and Eleanor C. N. (Creighton) Farmer. Elmer Farmer (Creighton) was six years old when 
his father died. Later in life, Elmer adopted his mother’s maiden name, becoming known 
as Dr. Creighton. Creighton never married. Elmer Creighton died in Schenectady, New 
York, on January 12, 1928. 50 

Biographical Sketch 

Elmer Creighton was an expert electrical engineer with General Electric and a professor 
at Cornell University. 51 He was the brother-in-law of artist Bristow Adams, who prepared 
numerous sketches of fur seals. 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Elmer Creighton served as assistant to David Starr Jordan, Chief Commissioner of the 
Bering Sea Fur-Seal Commission, during the 1897 summer investigations on the Pribilofs. 


196 








Biographies C ♦ Coues - Crowley 


Crowley, Joseph Burns (1858-1931) 

Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. Paul Island, 1893-1897 


Genealogy 

The son of Samuel Burns Crowley and Elizabeth 
(Williams) Crowley, Joseph Burns Crowley was 
born on July 19, 1858, at Coshocton, Ohio. Joseph 
Crowley married Alice A. Newlin on December 1, 
1889, at Robinson, Illinois. Joseph and Alice Crowley 
had two children: Emily and Joseph Burns Jr. Joseph 
Crowley Sr. died in Robinson on June 25, 1931. 52 

Biographical Sketch 



Joseph Crowley received his education in Illinois Sketch of Joseph Crowley. (The 
schools, studied law in the office of George N. Parker, Robinson Argus, 1902.U 
and was admitted to the Illinois Bar in May 1883. He set up a law practice at Robinson, 
Crawford County, Illinois, and became a leading citizen of the state. He was elected judge 
of Crawford County in 1886, a position he held until 1893, when he became a Treasury 
agent. Judge Crowley was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and served during 
the years 1899-1905. He was state attorney for Crawford County, Illinois, from 1912 to 
1916. 53 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

Joseph B. Crowley was appointed by President Grover Cleveland as special Treasury agent 
to the Seal Islands in 1893, and he continued in that position until the end of the 1897 
sealing season. The Secretary of the Treasury issued Crowley the following instructions: 

Instructions to Treasury Agent, Seal Island 

Treasury Department 

Office of Secretary 

Washington, D.C. April 26, 1893 

Mr. Joseph B. Crowley, 

Special Agent in charge of Seal islands, 

Washington, D.C. 

Sir: 

Having been appointed Treasury Agent in charge of the Seal Islands in Alaska you are 
directed to proceed to San Francisco, California, so as to arrive there as early as the 10th 
proximate, and to take passage on the first available conveyance to the islands. Special 
Agents Hall, Adams, and Murray will accompany you, one of whom you will assign to 
duty in charge of St. George Island to relieve Special Agent Lavender, who will return to 
his home by the first vessel leaving the islands. One of these Agents will relieve Lieutenant 
Ainsworth of the Revenue Marine Service, who was temporarily detailed for duty on the 
island of St. Paul. 

Upon arrival at the islands you will at once assume charge of the interests and property 
of the Government and see to it that your authority as the chief representative of the 
Government there is properly respected. 


197 








Pribilof Islands: The People 


Enclosed herewith you will find a copy of the contract between the U.S. and the North 
American Commercial Co. and it will be your duty to see that its provisions are enforced 
and that the rights of the Government and those of the Lessees there-under are duly 
protected. 

Copy of the Modus Vivendi between the U.S. and Great Britain is also enclosed for your 
information, which you will observe continues in force pending the arbitration of the 
Bering Sea Question, unless otherwise provided for after Oct. 31st 1893. 

In accordance with the provisions of the Modus Vivendi the number of seals to be taken 
during the season of 1893 will be limited to 7,500. In taking this number you will permit no 
seals to be killed except those yielding good marketable skins. The killing of pup seals for 
food for the natives or any purpose will not be permitted. 

The killing season will begin as soon after your arrival as in your judgment the rookeries 
are in proper condition for driving, and the time for taking seals is left to your discretion, 
with the exception that no seals are to be taken during the stagy period, which is 
understood to be the period between the 10th of Aug. and the 30th of Sept. 

It is believed that the killing should be confined between the 1st of June and the 10th of 
Aug. a better quality of skins would be obtained and less injury be done to the rookeries. 
This matter is, however, left as above stated, to your discretion, and in reference hereto you 
will confer fully with the representative of the company; its interests and those of the Govt, 
in the preservation of the Fur Seal Industry being identical. You will endeavor to cultivate 
and promote harmonious relations with the Agents of the Company with respect to affairs 
on the islands, taking care at all times that the provisions of the law and of the contract are 
faithfully observed. 

Should any disagreement arise between you and the Company’s Superintendent with 
respect to the construction of the law on the contract between the Government and said 
Company, or upon any matter of administration on the islands, your decision must govern 
for the time being, but in all such cases you will require the Superintendent to furnish you 
a statement in writing of his news upon the question involved, which you will submit to the 
Department with your annual report. 

The Department desires you to make a thorough examination during the sealing season 
as to the habits, numbers and condition of the seals and seal rookeries, the results of such 
observations to be embodied in your annual report. 

The care and welfare of the natives will receive your careful attention and you will see that 
the Lessees shall perform all the obligations of their contract towards these people. You 
will ascertain the prices charged at the Company’s stores and compare them with prices at 
San Francisco and will report any instances where the natives are compelled to pay more 
than a fair price for articles sold them, and you will also inspect the articles sold them, and 
you will also inspect the articles supplied as to quality and quantity, and if deficient you 
will report the fact to the Department. The compensation to be paid by the Company to 
the natives for killing, salting, and loading the seal skins on board the Company’s steamer 
will be fifty cents for each skin taken from the islands during the season. The money thus 
earned constitutes a community fund, and is to be divided among the natives according to 
their respective classification. This division may be made by the Company subject to your 
approval and you will transmit with your report a schedule showing the apportionment 
with the name of each person sharing therein. 

Under previous instructions from this Department: A system was adopted by which 
orders are made upon the Company for supplies necessary for the support of the native 
inhabitants. This system will be continued by you. An appropriation of $19,500 was made 
by Congress for the current fiscal year for the support of the natives, and the same amount 
has been appropriated for the coming fiscal year. Careful accounts will be kept both upon 
the islands of St. Paul and St. George of the articles thus furnished in order that you may 
be able to certify the bills of the Company therefore. The supplies to be furnished will be 


198 





Joseph Crowley (center with dark hat), George Tingle (?), and Joseph Stanley-Brown on 
warehouse porch, St. Paul Island. (AMNH Special Collections, Chichester Coll., HDC172, 
neg. 101114.) 



Left to right: William D. J. Ainsworth (?), 2nd Lt. U.S.R.M. retired, Acting U.S. Treasury Agent, 
St. Paul Island; Joseph Murray, Assistant Treasury Agent St. Paul Island; Mrs. Mary (Garfield) 
Stanley-Brown and husband Joseph Stanley-Brown, Special Treasury Agent; Mrs. Alice (Newlin) 
Crowley and husband Joseph Burns Crowley, Chief Treasury Agent, Pribilof Islands; Harry 
Dennison Chichester, Clerk to Joseph Stanley-Brown, Assistant Special Treasury Agent. (NAA, 
Arctic: Aleut series, lot 24, 1453000.) 


199 
























Pribilof Islands: The People 


confined to the substantial means of subsistence . The funds appropriated will probably fall 
short of the amount needed for necessaries, and the natives should not be permitted to buy 
at the Company’s stores expensive luxuries. You will endeavor to secure the co-operation of 
the Agents of the Company in enforcing economy in these expenditures. 

The Department has arranged with the North American Commercial Company to deliver 
to the islands two hundred ninety (290) tons of coal in addition to the eighty (80) tons 
which they are required to furnish under the terms of the lease. This will be a supply of St. 
Paul and St. George for the ensuing fiscal year. 

You will take account of the coal to be furnished by the Company and cause it to be divided 
as follows, unless in your judgment a different division should be made in the interest of 
the natives: 

On St. Paul Island 

For the Government House—10 tons 
For use of the natives—240 tons 

On St. George Island 
For the Government House—10 tons 
For the use of the natives—110 tons 
Total=370 tons 

The schools upon each of the islands of St. Paul and St. George are to be maintained from 
Sept. 1st to May 1st, and are to be open five days in the week. It will be your duty and that 
of the Agents who may be assigned to the islands during the winter to see that the teachers 
appointed by the Company are competent to teach the English language, and that they 
faithfully perform this duty. 

The North American Commercial Company under its lease has the exclusive privilege to 
trade in seal skins on the islands of St. Paul and St. George, and you will see that no other 
persons are allowed to trade with the natives for peltries of any kind. 

It is understood that the number of blue foxes on the islands has greatly decreased. For the 
benefit of the natives, to whom fox skins hair has heretofore been a source of considerable 
income, you will take such measures in co-operation with the Agents of the lessees as in 
your judgment may be deemed best to restrain the wholesale killing of foxes during the 
winter. It is believed that if the foxes could be trapped in such a way as to prevent his injury 
and all females so caught turned loose, such a course would tend to increase the supply of 
these valuable animals and you are authorized to take such measures as may seem best to 
promote this end. The lessees have the exclusive privilege of purchasing these skins from 
the natives and you will inform yourself as to their value, and will fix a fair price for them to 
be paid by the Company to the natives. 

Visitors who may come upon the islands will not be permitted to trade with the natives and 
no unauthorized person will be allowed to land upon the islands. ( Under no circumstances 
will visitors be allowed to go upon the rookeries as it is understood that miscellaneous 

visiting by unauthorized persons is injurious to the Seal herd. ) 

You will be personally present upon the grounds during the killing season, and support the 
officers of the company in securing faithful work by the natives. 

You will endeavor to secure the good will and confidence of the native inhabitants and 
advise them of their rights as American citizens, and by proper means endeavor to increase 
their friendship to the Government and people of the U. S. 

You will give careful attention to the sanitary condition of the villages and houses of the 
people, and will require the Company to make such repairs to the dwellings as are needed 
from time to time to make them comfortable. 

It is not intended that the appropriation of Congress for the care of these people shall be 
disbursed to them entirely as a gratuity, but they will be expected as an equivalent therefore 


200 









Biographies C ♦ Crowley 


to perform such services as you may elect such as guarding the rookeries, making roads, 
repairing dwellings, unloading and delivering coal for their use, and carrying in effect such 
other measures as you may deem advisable for the improvement of the sanitary condition 
of the villages and general health of the natives. The work thus performed, however, must 
not be regarded as relieving the Company from their obligation under the lease to employ 
the natives for such work upon the islands as they are fit to perform at a fair and just 
compensation, and to contribute all reasonable efforts to secure the friendship, health, 
education, and promote the morals and civilization of such native inhabitants. 

It is understood that many of the natives use sugar to make quass, and then indulge in 
drunkenness and disorderly conduct. As the chief representative of the U.S. on the islands 
it will be your duty to correct these evils and punish offenders against good order and 
good morals on the islands. The mode of accomplishing this must be left to your sound 
judgment, but such measures as may be adopted must be of a mild correction character, 
and must in no case be harsh or oppressive. 

When it is established that a man or woman has made quass from the sugar supplied them 
the further issue of sugar to such persons should be restricted or entirely cut off; but care 
should be taken to avoid punishing the innocent members of a family by such deprivation 
on account of the misuse of sugar by one of their number. 

A copy of these instructions will be furnished by you to the Agent to be placed in charge of 
St. George Island, and to the Agt. who may be at any time placed in temporary charge of 
St. Paul Island, for their guidance. You will make such assignment of the Assistant Agents 
as you may deem best, but neither the island of St. George nor St. Paul must be left at any 
time without the presence of a Special Agent. 

Respectfully yours, 

C. A. Hamlin, 

Acting Secretary 
A.K.F. 55 

It appears an unlikely coincidence that the Treasury Department appointed Joseph 
Crowley as agent at this juncture of the Seal Islands history. Crowley was an appointed 
judge from Crawford County, Illinois, and if ever the islands needed an agent familiar 
with upholding the law, this was the time. The Bering Sea controversy over the rights to 
the seal fishery was in arbitration before an international tribunal at Paris, France. The 
Treasury Department needed an exceptional man to assist them in the field. 

U.S. Treasury Agent-in-Charge Joseph Crowley arrived at St. Paul Island aboard the 
North American Commercial Company steamer Farallon on June 3, 1893. He replaced 
acting Agent-in-Charge Lt. D. J. Ainsworth, Revenue Marine. 56 Crowley stayed on St. 
Paul Island during the sealing seasons of his tenure, while the assistant special agents 
covered for him throughout the calendar year. 

Numerous examples as gleaned from the Agent's Log depict Agent Crowley set¬ 
ting about his business in accordance with his instructions from Acting Secretary of the 
Treasury Hamlin. Interested students are encouraged to delve into the historical record 
for more information and to allow individual interpretation as to the significance of 
Crowley’s influence in the short or long term. Some examples are provided here. 

Special Assistant Agent Thomas E. Adams (see Adams’ biography) worked with the 
community to form the first St. Paul Island Council, which led to the adoption of Native 
community rules. Crowley applied his legal expertise to settle a question raised by the 


201 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


council regarding use of the Pribilof Island church funds to support other than Pribilof 
Island community needs. Other actions of Crowley’s were recorded by the agent: 

Wednesday lune 21st 1893 

32 native men call on Treasury Agent Crowley at Government House, and request the 
removal of Chief, Nicoli Krukoff for cause and after hearing charges the matter of removal 
of the chief was deferred, time indefinite and the natives go away satisfied. 5 

Friday lune 23rd 1893 

The labor of unloading coal [circa 125 tons] from steamer [Farallon] still in progress.... 

Lee, the companies [sic] Chinese Laundry man called [and] filed complain [sic] against Paul 
Koshievnikoff a small native boy for throwing and striking him in the face with a stone. The 
boy was sent for and came to Government house accompanied by his mother who after 
facts gave her young son a good strapping and accompanied him home. 58 

Friday lune 28, 1893 

Assistant Agent [Joseph] Murray, in pursuance of instructions from Chief Agent Crowley 
ordered the following [four of eight orders; the other four were specific to individual 
families]: 59 

1. No native having money on deposit with the N.A.C. Company on account of inheritance, 
shall be permitted to withdraw the deposit, or any portion thereof, or to contract 
indebtedness to the Company to be paid therefrom, unless upon written order of the 
Government Agent in charge. 

2. No native having credit on account of the division of earnings in taking and handling seal 
pelts, or for fox skins sold to the N.A.C. Company, shall be paid money by the Company on 
account of such credits except as specified by the Government Agent in charge, in writing. 

7. That the compensation to natives, when employed by the Government, shall hereafter be 
$1.50 per day, and, by the hours, 15 cents, instead of 10 cents, as heretofore these being the 
rates allowed on St. Paul Island. 

8. That hereafter, until further orders, widows and their families shall be supplied with 
coats by the Government—the ration to be the same as to other families. 

Monday July 3rd 1893 

The smoke house used in 1892 for smoking and curing seal meat was overhauled, cleaned 
out and converted into a coal house for native coal. There was eleven barrels of smoked 
shoulders taken out of same but as the natives refuse to eat same they were thrown away 
and the house filled with coal. 60 


Tuesday July 4th 1893 

Day bright - sun shining and warm. The Government House decorated with American 
Flags. The forenoon was passed by the natives smoking cigars furnished by Company 
and Government agents and in singing songs of their own selection. Their rendition of 
"America” was far superior to what we often hear on picnic grounds down in the states. 
While partaking a sumptuous dinner at Co. house the telephone bell rang and following 
it came the information from the watchmen at N.E. Point. “Schooner in sight!” Soon after 
dinner, two sail boats could be seen from top of hill at west landing. They were near shore 
at west point. Some natives fishing about two miles out could both see and hear them 
shooting from their sail boats. Agent Adams accompanied by four natives went on guard 
at S.W. Bay Rookery and west point, and Agent Crowley accompanied by four natives went 
to N.E. Point to assist the guard there and the schooner was found in sight as reported,... 
until about 11 o’clock P.M when it disappeared from sight. 

Who is having the best time? The men of the revenue cutters down at Unalaska or the seal 
poachers just out of gunshot reach along the rookeries of St. Paul Island? 61 


202 









Biographies C ♦ Crowley - Culbertson 


Joseph Crowley resigned as agent-in-charge after overseeing the on-island activities 
of the Second Joint Bering Sea Fur-Seal Commission during 1896-97. He subsequent¬ 
ly accepted the Illinois Nineteenth District Democratic nomination to Congress and 
won. He is credited with making numerous changes to the administration of the Pribilof 
Islands. 62 


Culbertson, Richard Guy (1895-1969) 

Assistant Agent, Schoolteacher, U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, St. George Island, 1923-1925 
Agent, U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, St. George Island, 1926-1927 
Agent, U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, St. Paul Island, 1927-1929 

Storekeeper, Disbursing Officer, Jailer, Keeper of the Spirits, St. Paul Island, 1927-1929 
Genealogy 

Richard Guy Culbertson was born in 1895, 
at Woodleaf, North Carolina. During a fur¬ 
lough from the Pribilof Islands in 1924, Richard 
Culbertson met and married Mary S. Sandidge 
of Lynchburg, Virginia, while she was teaching in 
Mooresville, North Carolina. Richard and Mary 
Culbertson’s son, Richard K. Culbertson, was born 
at St. Paul Island in 1928. After retiring from gov¬ 
ernment service, Richard Guy Culbertson resided 
in Greenville, North Carolina, until his death on 
October 3, 1969. Mary Culbertson subsequently 
lived at Virginia Beach and Blacksburg, Virginia, 
where she died in 1988. 63 

Biographical Sketch 

Richard Culbertson was educated at King 
Business College in Charlotte, North Carolina. 

During World War I, he joined the U.S. Navy 
and served as a yeoman on the supply ship USS 
Nashan, which worked in Alaskan waters. During that duty Culbertson became familiar 
with the Pribilof Islands, and in 1920 he applied for a position with the Department of 
Commerce. 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Richard Culbertson began his Pribilof Islands career on St. George Island as a senior 
schoolteacher in 1923. The following sealing season he became an assistant agent, a posi¬ 
tion he maintained for three years while alternating as a teacher during the off-season. He 

I if 



Richard Culbertson on St. Paul Island. 
(Alaska State Library, Richard G. and 
Mary S. Culbertson Photograph Coll., 
PC A 390.27.) 


203 








Pribilof Islands: The People 


subsequently served on St. Paul Island as the agent, storekeeper, disbursing officer, jailer, 
and “keeper of the spirits” [liquor] from late 1927 through the 1929 sealing season. 

Mary Culbertson organized and taught “junior school” (kindergarten) at St. George 
Island; she later taught in the junior school at St. Paul Island. Her letters home during the 
fall of 1924 provided her parents with descriptive views into everyday island life—living 
conditions, means of communication, social activities, and occasional electric interrup¬ 
tions—as excerpted here: 


St. George Island, Alaska 
Sept 2, 1924 

The coast guard cutter “Mojove” brought mail from Unalaska, an overnight trip from here. 

As soon as some native children, who have the keenest eyes ever, saw the top of the mast 
on the distant horizon, they began yelling, “steamer, steamer,” at the top of their voices. 

Soon we heard her steamer whistle, saw her anchor flag go up, and then our men put off in 
a skin boat towed by the launch to bring in our mail bags. 

... I am afraid that Dick and I are going to be disappointed in getting our own house this 
fall. There were so few natives here to work during the season that it has taken longer to 
install the new water system for the village. The cold weather may set in before the concrete 
walls can be poured and the top put on. Should they get that much done before freezing we 
would be o.k. All our sand and gravel has to be brought in boats from a beach some miles 
away. This can only be done when the sea is very calm too. As things are now, we couldn’t 
ask to be more comfortably situated except for a place to do our own cookies. 

... For the last week we have had company in our house. The radio operator and his wife, 

Mr. & Mrs. Picken, who are packing up their household furniture preparatory to going to 
the states about the 8 or 10 of Sept. That means that our radio station will be a thing of 
the past. But we have been blessed with a radio telephone with which by ringing a little 
buzzer we can call up and talk with the people on St. Paul anytime. All messages will be 
telephoned to us instead of being sent in code. We often hold lengthy conversations with 
folks forty miles away with no connecting wires between! 

October 22, 1924 

Our light engine is crippled these days. The crank shaft broke so we have to use kerosene 
lamps until December when we get a new shaft. 

... The wind blows so hard that the carpet ripples and the wall paper rattles. That’s true! 

Not in our apartment, however, but upstairs in my school room facing the north. This 
house is about fifty years old, and will be torn down next year which is not any too soon. 

These rooms we have are some that Dick practically built over last year before he came 
home so that they are as nice as can be. 

Our new house is going up slowly. The basement walls have been poured, and the men are 
almost ready to pour the first floor walls. Then comes the roof making a place the men can 
work on inside all winter. We can watch them work right back of our house here. 

One of the natives is making me an ivory comb. He makes lovely ones too, copies patterns 
from books. 64 

The Culbertson family left the Pribilof Islands in 1929, when the U.S. Bureau of 
Fisheries assigned Richard office duties at Washington, D.C. 


204 




Left to right: Richard Culbertson, Henry D. Aller, Mrs. Barbara Aller, Mrs. Peterson, Mrs. Mygatt, 
Henry Mygatt, Watson Colt Allis, Harry A. Peterson, Dr. Bowlby, MD, 1922. (Alaska State Library, 
Richard G. and Mary S. Culbertson Photograph Coll., PCA 390.37.) 



Teacher Mary Culbertson and school children having a picnic by a 
camp house at Garden Cove, St. George Island, circa 1924. (Courtesy 
Deacon Father Andronic Kashevarof, DAK7.) 


205 



































































Teacher Richard Culbertson with senior grade school class (grades 1-8), St. 
George Island, circa 1923. (Courtesy Deacon Father Andronic Kashevarof, 
DAK9.) 


Ft-c f if •! *7 A \ 



During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, mule team- 
drawn wagons provided transportation on the Pribilofs, as in this example 
at St. George Island, 1920s. (Courtesy Deacon Father Andronic Kashevarof, 
DAK23.) 


206 








Biographies C ♦ Notes 


1 http://www.congressionalgoldmedal.com/samueljcall.htm (accessed Oct. 14, 2005); http://clerk. 
house.gov/art_history/house_history/goldMedal.html (accessed July 20, 2009); Alaska State Library, 
Samuel J. Call Photograph Collection guide, PCA 18, biographical information; Albert J. Cocke, "Dr. 
Samuel J. Call,” Alaska Journal, 4, no. 3 (1974): 181-8; and “Samuel J. Call,” Ancestry.com,. 

2 http://www.congressionalgoldmedal.com/samueljcall.htm (accessed Oct. 14, 2005); and http://clerk. 
house.gov/art_history/house_history/goldMedal.html (accessed July 20, 2009). 

3 U.S. Congress, House, Appendix A to Hearings Before the Committee on Expenditures in the 
Department of Commerce and Labor on House Resolution No. 73, To Investigate The Fur-Seal 
Industry of Alaska, 62nd Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, DC: GPO, 1911), 1113-4. 

4 U.S. Census 1870, Lost Creek Township, Vigo County, IN, 43; U.S. Census 1920, Oakland Township, 
Alameda County, CA, AD5, ED72, sheet 13B; U.S. Census 1900, Sacramento River, Shasta, CA, 

ED 118, sheet IB; H. W. Beckwith, History of Vigo and Parke Counties (Chicago: H. H. Hill, 1880), ' 
391-5; “Census Taker is Ill,” Oakland Tribune, Sept. 16, 1913; “Chamberlain,” Oakland Tribune, Aug. 
18, 1921, 6; and Tom Burger Family Tree, Ramona Ward, Ancestry World Tree, Ancestry.com. 

5 U.S. Census 1880, Lost Creek, Vigo County, IN, T9-0318;223B; Office of the Registrar, Indiana 
University, Bloomington, IN; telephone verification by Susan Kay of Frederick M. Chamberlain’s 
graduation given to Betty A. Lindsay, Jan. 19, 2007; William E. Cox, SIA RU 7258, Frederick M. 
Chamberlain Papers, 1899-1909; “Scientific Crew of Albatross,” http://vertebrates.si.edu/fishes/al- 
batross/people.html (accessed Jan. 18, 2007). 

6 SmithsonianNational Museum of Natural History. “Scientific Crew of Albatross,” http://vertebrates. 
si.edu/fishes/albatross/people.html (accessed Jan 18, 2007). 

7 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, Aug. 23-5, 1913. 

8 Ibid., Aug. 30, 1913. 

9 Chichester family information acquired from U.S. Federal Census, Ancestry.com, and http:// 
USGenweb.com. 

10 Ibid.; and U.S. Congress, House, Appendix A, 922-3. 

11 NOAA funded the American Museum of Natural History’s digital scanning of Chichester’s collec¬ 
tion in 2005, and has published Chichester’s collection in John A. Lindsay, Gina Rappaport, and 
Betty A. Lindsay, Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Guide to Photographs and Illustrations (2009). 

12 U.S. Congress, House, Appendix A, 277-8. 

13 Barton Warren Evermann, Alaska Fisheries and Fur Industries in 1911, Bur. of Fisheries, Doc. no. 

766 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1912), 90. 

14 Obituary, “Joseph Chomski, 46,” New York Times, Mar. 24, 1993, B7. 

15 “Dr. Isaac Chomski, 80, Dies,” New York Times, July 7, 1984, 14; and obituary, “Marsha Chomski,” 
New York Times, Apr. 1, 1993, D24. 

16 “Joseph Chomski, 46,” New York Times, Mar. 24, 1993, B7. 

17 The name Christophers has taken various spellings, as found in the U.S. Census records of the 
family, including ChristofFer and Christoffers. 

18 William Whalley of Camas, WA, grandson of Elsie’s sister Marie Kokrine, provided Christoffers and 
Kokrine biographical material to Betty Lindsay during Oct. 2005. 

19 Phone conversation with grandson Henry Christoffers, Oct. 25, 2005; and “Mrs. Christoffers’ father 
was chief of all the Indian tribes in Alaska at the time of the gold rush there,” Atchison Daily Globe 
(Kansas), July 6, 1946, 10. 

20 Canon Bertal Heeney, ed., Leaders of the Canadian Church. Vol. 2, Robert McDonald (Toronto: 
Musson, 1920), 120. 

21 Official Journal, St. George Island, Alaska, 1939, Sept. 8, NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, 
RG 22. 

22 Barrett Willoughby, Alaska Holiday (Boston: Little, Brown, 1940), 216-7. 

23 Watson Colt Allis Scrapbook, Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, Alaska and Polar Regions Coll., UAF. 

24 Ward T. Bower, Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries in 1939, U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, 
Administrative Rep. no. 40 (1940), 160. 

25 U.S. Census, 1920 and 1930; and Ward T. Bower, Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries, annual 
administrative reports 1918-38. 

26 Clark family information provided by Chuck Rodekohr, Rochester, NY, Oct. 24, 2005; Beverly Ray, 
Covina, CA, Oct. 31, 2005; Ted Jackson, Rochester, NY, Oct. 31, 2005; U.S. Coast Guard History 
FAQs, http://www.uscg.mil/ (accessed Oct. 20, 2005); and U.S. Federal Census, Ancestry.com (ac- 


207 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


cessed Oct. 31, 2005). 

27 Letter from John C. Metzler, Superintendent, U.S. Dept, of the Navy, to Beverly Ray, Covina, CA, 
Dec. 14, 1994, re: interment of Ezra W. Clark, his wife, and son, courtesy of Beverly Ray, Mar. 2003. 

28 Notarized affidavit by Ezra W. Clark, March 18, 1905, accompanying an application to the 
Department of the Interior, Bureau of Pensions filed March 10, 1905, stamped U.S. Army Division, 
Pension Bureau, March 22, 1905. 

29 “The Fur Seal Monopoly,” New York Times, Feb. 22, 1890, 5. 

30 “Alaska Fisheries Leased,” New York Times, May 1, 1890, 5. 

31 U.S. Congress, House, Appendix A, 927. 

32 The “junior school” serviced four- and five-year-olds prior to their entering the first grade. 

33 Ibid., 141-2. 

34 Barton Warren Evermann, Alaska Fisheries and Fur Industries in 1912, U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, 

Doc. no. 780 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1913), 12; and Wilfred H. Osgood, Edward A. Preble, and 
George H. Parker, “The Fur Seals and Other Life of the Pribilof Islands, Alaska, in 1914,” Bulletin of 
the Bureau of Fisheries 34 (1915): 117 provided a follow-up account of the reindeer introduction on 
the Pribilof Islands. 

35 Victor B. Scheffer, “The Rise and Fall of a Reindeer Herd,” Scientific Monthly, Dec. 1951. 

36 “She’s From Washington and Lives Up On a Seal Island,” Washington Star, date unknown, cour¬ 
tesy of Livingston Co. Historian’s Office, loose paper file under Ezra Westcote Clark, 30 Center St., 
Genesee, NY, provided by Beverly Ray, Covina, CA, Mar. 2003. 

37 Guide to the George A. Clark. Fur Seal Controversy Papers, 1892-1969, Coll. no. Ml 18, Stanford 
University Libraries Dept, of Special Collections, Stanford, CA. 

38 J. M. Macoun, “The Fur-Seal of the North Pacific,” Transactions of Ottawa Literary and Scientific 
Society 1 (1897), 69. 

39 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1897, 147. 

40 Ibid., July 12, 1913. 

41 Ibid., July 9, 1913. 

42 Ibid., July 9, 1913. 

43 Ibid., July 12, 1913. 

44 Ibid., July 23, 1913. 

45 Osgood et al., “The Fur Seals and Other Life,” 27. 

46 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, convened at Paris 
under the Treaty between the United States of America and Great Britain, concluded at Washington 
February 29, 1892, for the determination of questions between the two governments concerning the 
jurisdictional rights of the United States in the waters of Bering Sea, vol. 3 (Washington, DC: GPO, 
1895), 158-9. 

47 Witmore Stone. “Elliott Coues.” Dictionary of American Biography Base Set. American Council of 
Learned Societies, 1828-1936. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, MI: The 
Gale Group http://www.galenet. com/servlet/BioRC (Document Number:BT2310015496; accessed 
Sept. 2, 2003.) 

48 Ibid. 

49 Henry W. Elliott, Report on the Prybilov Group, or Seal Islands of Alaska (Washington, DC: GPO, 
1873), 80-115. 

50 Obituary of Elmer Ellsworth Farmer, New York Times, Jan. 14, 1928, 17; Guide to Bristow Adams 
Papers, Cornell University Library, Rare Manuscript Collection, Coll. 3205; Ancestry.com; and U.S. 
Dept, of State, Passport Applications, 1795-1905, NARA microfilm publication M1372, passport no. 
1368 issued May 31, 1898. 

51 Obituary of Elmer Ellsworth Farmer, New York Times, Jan. 14, 1928, 17; Guide to Bristow Adams 
Papers, Cornell University Library; and Ancestry.com. 

52 Paul Selby, ed., Illinois Historical Crawford County Biographical (Chicago: Munsell, 1909), 628 
and 703; “Crowley, Joseph Burns, (1858 - 1931),” Library of Congress, Biographical Directory 
of the United States Congress, 1774-Present, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay. 
pl?index=C000943 (accessed Jan 3, 2007); and U.S. Federal Census, 1860, Ancestry.com. 

53 Ibid. 

54 George W. Harper, The Robinson Argus (Robinson, IL), June 18, 1902, 6, courtesy Carnegie Public 
Library, Robinson, IL. 


208 




Biographies C ♦ Notes 


55 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1893, 158-70. 

56 Ibid., 143. 

57 Ibid., 148. 

58 Ibid., 148. 

59 St. George Island Agent’s Log, 1893, 290. 

60 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1893, 150. 

61 Ibid., 151. 

62 Harper, The Robinson Argus, 6. 

63 Richard K. Culbertson, MS 4-22-9, Alaska State Library, Juneau. 

64 Letters and biographical information courtesy Alaska Dept, of Education, Division of Libraries, 
Archives and Museums. Richard G. and Mary S. Culbertson Papers, 1924-1931, MS 4-22-9, Alaska 
Historical Collections. 



Harry D. Chichester gathering arries eggs at Walrus Island 1892. (AMNH Special Collections, 
Chichester Coll., HDC260, neg. 101139.) 


209 













Jhe y illage J4ill, ]St. Paul's Jsland. 

from the StemueVs anttota/ie in Xut, < JS<n—mth* - lti,tarrah"— August 15 , >» 7 »- 

The Village Hill, St. Paul’s Island. From the Steamer's anchorage in Zotoi Bay—Native 
“Bidarrah”—August 15, 1872. ( This Henry Elliott sketch depicts Natives in their skinboat 
or “Bidarrah” and Village Hill on St. Paul Island as viewed from Zolotoi Bay.) Henry 
Wood Elliott. 1873. Report on the Prybilov Group, or Seal Islands of Alaska. 



JIative Pgat, oFy "Pidarr^ah.” 

Made out of Sea fion skins stretcheti over a wooden fnxme — Vi//agr <vrr, St. I\tn/'s /slant/. 






Native Boat, or “Bidarrah.” Made out of Sea-lion Skins Stretched over a Wooden frame— 
Village Cove, St, Paul’s Island. Henry Wood Elliott. 1873. Report on the Prybilov Group, or 
Seal Islands of Alaska. 


210 


















D 


Dall, William Healey (1845-1927) 

Scientist, St. George Island, 1868 

Biologist, Geologist, U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, Pribilof Islands, 1874, 1880 


Genealogy 

William Healey Dall was born at Boston, 
Massachusetts, on August 21, 1845, to the 
Reverend Charles Henry Appleton Dall, a 
Unitarian minister, and Caroline Wells (Healy) 
Dall. Charles and Caroline Dall had four chil¬ 
dren: Charles Whitney, Marion, Marcus H., and 
William Austin. William Dall married Annette 
Whitney on March 3, 1880. William Healy Dall 
died on March 27, 1927. 1 

Biographical Sketch and Pribilof Islands 

Experience 

At the beginning of his career William H. Dall 
worked with Henry Wood Elliott in the South 
Tower Room at the Smithsonian Institution. At 
the time, they considered themselves friends. 
Together in 1865, they took advantage of an op¬ 
portunity to participate in the Western Union 
Telegraph Expedition (aka [Perry McDonough] 
Collins Overland Telegraph Expedition and the 
Russian-American Telegraph Expedition) to 





William H. Dall, July 9, 1865. (SIA 1156, 
neg. 2004-18871, RU 95, box 6, folder 42.) 


211 

















Pribilof Islands: The People 



33. Bidarka traveling, ready t<> start. 

William H. Dali in ‘‘Bidarka traveling, ready to start’,’ circa 1871. (Photo: Hartmann and Weinland. 
SI A 2004-43552, RU 7073, box 53, W. H. Dali Papers.) 


Alaska. The Expedition was divided into three divisions: Canadian, Russian American, and 
Asian. Although Dali and Elliott socialized together during that time, 2 they took separate 
paths. Dali went to Russian America, including the Yukon River region, whereas Elliott 
went with the Canadian Division. In 1866, after the untimely death of the Expedition’s 
leader, Robert Kennicott (1835-1866), Dali, then an aspiring biologist and paleontolo¬ 
gist, became Director of the Scientific Corps for the Expedition. 3 When in 1867 the 
Expedition was terminated for the reason of obsolescence following the successful laying 
of the Atlantic cable to Europe, Dali remained in Alaska until the late summer of 1868 
to conduct further exploration. 4 Dali credited Henry Elliott in his book Alaska and Its 
Resources (1870): “The illustrations are all from original sketches by the writer, or from 
the articles themselves, and owe whatever artistic merit they may possess to the pencil of 
Mr. H. W. Elliott.” However, it appears that from that point their paths began to part (see 
Henry Wood Elliott biography). 5 

In 1892, Dali summarized his professional experience in a deposition before John 
J. Malone on April 9, 1892, for the U.S. presentation before the International Fur-Seal 
Tribunal of Arbitration. 

That in connection with my scientific studies at Cambridge, Mass., I devoted nearly three 
years to the study of biology, anatomy, and medicine; that since completing my studies with 
Prof. Louis Agassiz at Cambridge [Massachusetts], in the year 1863,1 have been engaged 
in scientific work, and am now a paleontologist in the U.S. Geological Survey. I first visited 
Bering Sea in the summer of 1865 as a member of the scientific corps of the Western Union 
Telegraph expedition. Visited the Aleutian Islands and went to St. Michael, passing near the 
Pribilof group.... In the fall of 1868 I made my way back to San Francisco on the schooner 


212 




Biographies D ♦ Dall 


Francis Steele, owned by the Pioneer American Fur Company [aka Parrott and Company], 
which had a station at St. George Island, where we stopped on our way south, and thus 
gave me a chance to observe seal life for several weeks. In 1871 I joined the U.S. Coast and 
Geodetic Survey for the purpose of carrying out a proposed survey of the Aleutian chain of 
islands. I was thus engaged from the summer of 1871 to the end of the season.... During 
this period had opportunity to familiarize myself with aquatic seal life, and in 1874 made a 
reconnaissance survey of the Pribilof Islands, which afforded me additional opportunity to 
observe seal life on the rookeries. 6 

Others would add to Dali’s summary of professional experience: 

In addition to his services for the government he also held the chair of invertebrate 
paleontology in the Wagner Institute of Science in Philadelphia ... he received in 1889, the 
gold medal of the Institute. During 1899-1915, he was an honorary curator of the Bishop 
Museum in Hawaii. 7 

In Dali’s 1892 deposition for the Tribunal of Arbitration he included comments about 
his 1868 visit to St. George Island: 

During my visit to St. George Island in 1868, 8 this vast territory of 
Alaska had just fallen into the possession of the United States, and the 
Government had not yet fairly established more than a beginning of 
an organization for its management as a whole, without mentioning 
such details as the Pribilof Islands. In consequence of this state of 
affairs private enterprise, in the form of companies dealing in furs, had 
established numerous sealing stations on the islands. During my stay, 
except on a single occasion, the driving from the hauling grounds, the 
killing, and skinning was done by the natives in the same manner as 
when under the Russian rule, each competing party paying them so 
much per skin for their labor in taking them. Despite the very bitter and 
more or less unscrupulous competition among the parties, all recognized 
the importance of preserving the industry and protecting the breeding 
grounds from molestation, and for the most part were guided by this 
conviction. 9 

In Alaska and Its Resources, Dall proposed that the Pribilof 
Islands’ Aleuts, through legislation, be the sole authorities to kill fur 
seals and to sell the pelts to trading companies, who themselves (i.e., 
the companies) would be required to pay taxes to the government on 
each pelt purchased. 10 

Dall described the Pribilovians’ utilization of the seal: 

The flesh of a young fur-seal, placed in running water overnight and 
then broiled, is far from disagreeable. In fact, it tastes almost exactly like 

mutton-chop. The young sea-lion is said to be even better eating-The 

Aleuts make boot-soles, which are very durable, of the skin of the flippers. 

The fat cut from the nearest carcass serves them for fuel. The blubber of 
the fur-seal makes oil of the first quality, and is worth about two dollars a 
gallon.... Each seal will make half a gallon. 11 

The British had challenged the U.S. claim of sovereignty over the 
entire Bering Sea east of the Russian territorial line and its claim to 
the northern fur seal both on the high seas and within the territorial sea. To that end, 
the British attempted to overturn every stone concerning the Seal Islands to uncover 
facts and opinions in support of their case before an International Tribunal of Arbitration 



213 














Pribilof Islands: The People 


convened at Paris, France. Respecting Dali, the British counsel borrowed his following 
statements: 

I have not arrived at that point where I should believe that the Government habitually 
employs dishonest Agents, though long experience in Alaska might shake any man’s 
optimism. 12 

... it would be very desirable that the officers of the United States employed on the 
Pribyloff Islands should be prohibited from receiving pay from, or rendering services 
for pay to, the Company whom, practically, they are placed there to watch. That this has 
occurred in several instances I am aware, and probably in some cases without any improper 
intent on either side; but it is evident at once that it opens a wide door for scandal, if not for 
fraud. 13 

William H. Dali was appointed Acting Assistant of the U.S. Coast Survey, later to 
become the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, in 1871. In 1884, he accepted a position 
as paleontologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, which assigned him to the National 
Museum as Curator for the Division of Mollusks and Tertiary Fossils. 14 In that capacity, 
Dali participated in the Harriman Expedition to Alaska, which included a stop at the 
Pribilof Islands in 1899. 

Dali wrote a significant number of scientific publications as a result of his explo¬ 
rations into the Alaska frontier. His 1870 publication Alaska and Its Resources was ac¬ 
cepted for many years as the authoritative text regarding Alaska. 15 Besides the Dali sheep 
(originally Dali’s sheep), several geographical features in Alaska bear Dali’s name, includ¬ 
ing Dali Island in Southeast Alaska and Dali Mountain in the McKinley Range. 16 Among 
Dali’s most important Aleutian works were On the Remains of the Later Prehistoric Man 
Obtained from Caves in the Catherina Archipelago, Alaska Territory, and Especially from 
the Caves of the Aleutian Islands (1878) and On Masks, Labrets and Certain Aboriginal 
Customs with an Inquiry into the Bearing of their Geographic Distribution (1884). 


General William Ward Duffield (1823-1907) 

Superintendent, Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1894-1897 
Soldier, Civil Engineer, Lawyer, Politician 

Genealogy 

William Ward Duffield was born at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on November 19, 1823, to 
the Reverend George and Isabella Graham (Bethune) Duffield. William Duffield mar¬ 
ried Annie Louise Ladue, June 27, 1854, at Detroit, Michigan. Annie Louise was born 
October 19, 1832, in Rensselaer County, New York, of Andrew Ladue and Louise Angel 
Ladue. William and Annie Louise had two children born at Detroit, Michigan: Louise 
Angel Duffield, born April 19, 1855, and William Ward Duffield Jr., born November 12, 
1858. William Ward Duffield Sr. died at Washington, D.C., June 22, 1907, and is buried in 
Arlington National Cemetery. Annie Louise Duffield died at Harlan, Kentucky, April 17, 
1916, and is buried beside her husband at Arlington. 17 


214 





Biographies D ♦ Dall - Duffield 


Biographical Sketch 

William Ward Duffield spent the majority of 
his adult life in government service as a mili¬ 
tary leader and civil engineer. President Grover 
Cleveland appointed him Superintendent of the 
U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey at Washington, 

D.C., in 1894. Earlier he had been prominent 
as a civil engineer with many of the country’s 
major railroad construction lines. He also served 
two terms as a Michigan state senator. Duffield 
received his degree as a civil engineer from 
Columbia College [now Columbia University] in 
New York City in 1842. 

Duffield ... a Senator from Wayne County in 
1879 ... became a resident of Detroit in 1836. 

By profession a civil engineer, also a member William Ward Duffield. (Middletown 

of the Detroit bar. He was adjutant of the 2d Daily Argus, Middletown, NY, Oct. 9, 

Tennessee in the Mexican war; was engineer and 

superintendent of railroads in New York; surveyed the Detroit & Milwaukee railroad in 
1852 from Pontiac to Grand Haven; also the road from Detroit to Port Huron, and from 
Mendota to Galesburg, Ill.; went out in 1861 as lieutenant colonel of the 4th Michigan 
infantry, and became colonel of the 9th infantry; commanded 23d brigade, was military 
governor of Kentucky, and was wounded and compelled to resign; had charge of coal mines 
in Pennsylvania and iron mines in Kentucky, and was chief engineer of the Kentucky union 
railroad. 18 

Duffield had also worked as a civil engineer surveying government lands in the west¬ 
ern Dakota and Colorado territories during 1869-1872. He was made chief engineer of 
the Kentucky Union Railroad in 1885 and took charge of the survey and examination of 
all the lands of that line. While residing in Pineville, Kentucky, and working as chief engi¬ 
neer building the Kentucky Union Railroad, Duffield received word from Washington. 19 

In September, 1894, General Duffield was honored by President Cleveland with the 
appointment as superintendent of the Geodetic Survey; and we again quote from the 
Detroit Free Press of September 26, 1894: “The appointment of General W.W. Duffield, 
of Detroit, to be superintendent of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, in place of Professor 
T.C. Mendenhall, resigned, was announced at the Treasury Department, Washington, 

September 25th. The position is worth six thousand dollars per annum.... The selection 
of General Duffield for this important position was made by the President after careful 
consideration of the claims and qualifications of more than a score of candidates, several of 
whom possessed unusual scientific attainments in the line of work of the survey. General 
Duffield’s great experience as an engineer, and especially his national reputation in his 
profession, which guaranteed that his appointment would be well received, finally decided 
the President in his favor.... General Duffield is an earnest and lifelong Democrat, and 
was elected to the Michigan State Senate of 1881 [also 1879], He was alternate at large for 
Don M. Dickinson in the Democratic National Convention in 1892. His qualifications for 
the important position to which he has been nominated are everywhere conceded, and his 
residence in different portions of the country has given him an extensive circle of warm 
friends that will be heartily pleased that the gallant veteran has received such handsome 
recognition. 20 



GEN'EttAL vr. TV. DCFFirLD. 


215 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


Several months after taking his new post, Duffield received news that funds would be 
made available for many mapping projects, including in Alaska. 

Considerable work under the coast and geodetic survey has been made possible by 
the Sundry Civil bill.... It is estimated that it will take nearly $20,000 to conduct 
this important work.... There will be also resurveys of San Francisco Harbor, and a 
continuation of the exploration of the waters of Alaska, including a survey of the Aleutian 
Islands and an examination of the mouth of the Yukon River. 21 

During mapping in 1895, Lt. Commander E. K. Moore, USN, named Duffield 
Peninsula on the north coast of Baranof Island for General William Ward Duffield. 22 The 
discovery of gold in the Yukon in 1896, and the resulting frenzy of the Gold Rush gave 
new urgency to a longstanding boundary dispute between Alaska and Canada. General 
Duffield’s office was central to the discussion. 

Washington, Aug. 22. - Gen. Duffield: The boundary line is fixed by treaties between this 
country and Great Britain and between Russia and Great Britain. The work of the surveyors 
is definitely to mark the lines laid down by those treaties. We have an engineering party 
engaged in that labor, and so have the English, and the surveys are being made as rapidly as 
the appropriations and the seasons will permit. When the work is completed, a report will 
be made to the respective Governments. 23 

Nothing can be done more than already has been done toward marking the boundary line 
between Alaska and the British possessions along the one hundred and forty-first meridian 
until the Senate passes upon the boundary treaty now before it. There is, however, no doubt 
of the location of the line along this meridian, and most people in the locality know where 
it is.... Gen. Duffield has spent considerable time in Alaska. He expresses the opinion 
that a railroad easily can be constructed from Taku Inlet to the Klondike gold fields, and 
believes that the enterprise will be worth undertaking, because of the richness of the 
mines. 24 

Duffield was also quoted as saying: 

The one hundred and forty-first meridian was designated as the boundary between Russia 
and Great Britain, and nothing remained after our acceptance of that understanding but 
to locate the meridian. The location was made on the north of the Porcupine River by our 
surveyors, and in the vicinity of the Yukon by the Canadians under Ogilvie, and their work 
there checked by our men. We found that where the Ogilvie line crossed Forty Mile Creek 
it was 15-100 of a second or six feet and nine inches too far east, and where it crossed 
the Yukon it was 14 seconds or 618 feet too far west. Thus it may be seen that the line as 
located by Ogilvie is substantially correct. There is no possibility of an error the correction 
of which could place the new gold region in American territory. The nearest point, Dawson 
City, is fifty miles on the Canadian side of the Ogilvie line. If the treaty now before the 
Senate providing for fixing the boundary is ratified, a commission will be appointed to 
perform this duty. 25 

The Alaskan boundary dispute that had plagued Duffield’s service was not fully 
settled for another twenty-eight years. In 1898, a Joint High Commission between the 
United States and Great Britain was formed as Duffield had suggested. However, five 
years would pass before an agreement on the dispute would be reached. On January 24, 
1903, the two nations finally agreed to appoint an Alaskan Boundary Tribunal consisting 
of six impartial judges to resolve the dispute. The majority of the tribunal decided in favor 
of the articles in question; thus the boundary along hundreds of miles in Southeast Alaska 
was finally settled on October 20, 1903. 26 Two other treaties, one in 1908 and another in 
1925, between the United States and Great Britain also addressed the Alaska-Canadian 


216 




SC.35U 



U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey map of the Lagoon Rookery (subsequently extinct), St. Paul Island. 
Surveyed by party of Will. Ward Duffield, Assist., 1897; printed 1898. 


1 L 


217 






































Pribilof Islands: The People 


boundary. The 1908 treaty provided for a permanent commission, and the 1925 treaty 
agreed to maintain a 20-foot wide demarcation along the border. 2 

Having been appointed by President Cleveland, General Duffield was requested to 
resign, as was the custom, when the administration of William McKinley took office in 
October 1897. Duffield stepped down on November 30, 1897, and resided with his wife 
in Washington, D.C., until his death. His replacement as Superintendent of the Coast 
Survey was Dr. Henry Smith Pritchett. 28 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

“In April 1897 the coast survey was directed to conduct a topographical survey of the 
Pribilof Islands and the seal rookeries,” wrote geographer Donald J. Orth. “Complete top¬ 
ographical surveys were made of St. Paul, St. George, Walrus, and Otter Islands. Results 
of these surveys were published on the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey charts in 1898.” 29 
The St. Paul Island Agent’s Log for May 1897 noted: 

The geodetic surveying party was landed. Capt. Tuttle and Dr. Call of the Bear called this 
morning. The surveying party consists of: 

Wm. Ward Duffield, chief; Fremont Morse, Geo. R. Putnam and Geo. L. Flower, assistants; 

Henry J. Slaken, Joseph E. Freeman, Wm. S. Broughton, Chas. H. Roesch, and Fletcher 
G. Forny, Edward P. Rudolph and Gustov Bergman, workmen. The purpose is to make a 
minute survey of the Islands, and especially the seal rookeries thereon, and prepare maps 
in detail of the same. 30 


Dunn, Poindexter (1834-1914) 

Representative, U.S. Congress 

Chairman of the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, 1888-1889 
Genealogy 

Poindexter Dunn was born on November 3, 1834, near Raleigh, Wake County, North 
Carolina, to Grey Dunn and Lydia (Baucom) Dunn. Poindexter Dunn married Susan 
Pollock on January 23, 1879, at St. Lrancis, Arkansas. Poindexter and Susan Dunn had 
two daughters: Louisa and Annie Poindexter Dunn. In 1905, Poindexter Dunn settled in 
Texarkana, Bowie County, Texas, where he died on October 12, 1914. 31 

Biographical Sketch 

Poindexter Dunn became a lawyer, with both government and private practices. 
Employment opportunities took him to Los Angeles, New York City, and Baton Rouge, 
Louisiana. 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

U.S. Congressional Representative from Arkansas, Poindexter Dunn, served as the 
Chairman of the Committee on Merchant Marine and Lisheries, 50th Congress, second 


218 








Biographies D ♦ Duffield - Notes 


session (from December 1888 to March 1889), which investigated the Alaska Commercial 
Company’s activities on the Pribilof Islands. The investigation’s results were presented 
in “The Fur-Seal and Other Fisheries of Alaska: Investigation of the Fur-Seal and Other 
Fisheries of Alaska” 50th Congress, 2nd session, House Report no. 3883. The findings 
were fundamental to the official deliberations leading to the non-renewal of the Alaska 
Commercial Company’s lease of the Pribilof Islands seal fisheries in 1890. Politically, the 
ACC was outmaneuvered by the North American Commercial Company for the new 
twenty-year lease (see Stephen B. Elkins biography). 


1 Alison Pligman, Ancestry World Tree at Ancestry.com 

2 Ibid., 39, which cites Dali Diaries, Dec. 2, 1868, and May 17, 1869, SIA, RU 7073, William H. Dali 
Papers, box 7, folder 7. 

3 William H. Dali, Alaska and Its Resources (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1870), 6. As Director of the 
Scientific Corps, Western Union Telegraph Expedition, Dali visited St. George Island for a few days 
during his tour of Alaska. 

4 Dali, Alaska and Its Resources, 3-6 and 242. Dali returned to San Francisco on Sept. 29, 1868. 
Additional information is provided at “William H. Dali, Alaskan Explorer,” http://www.si.edu/ar- 
chives/Documents/dall.htm (accessed May 28, 2004). 

5 Additional information is provided at Archives, Manuscripts, Photographs Catalog, “William H. 

Dali, Alaskan Explorer,” http://siris-archives.si.edu/ipac20 (accessed Sep. 30, 2003); http://www. 
si.edu/archives/Documents/dall.htm (accessed May 28, 2004); and History of the Smithsonian 
Catalog, SIRIS, Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (accessed June 21, 2006). 

6 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, convened at Paris 
under the Treaty between the United States of America and Great Britain, concluded at Washington 
February 29, 1892, for the determination of questions between the two governments concerning the 
jurisdictional rights of the United States in the waters of Bering Sea, vol. 3 (Washington, DC: GPO, 
1895), 22. 

7 C. Hart Merriam, “Wm. Healey Dali,” Science, Apr. 8, 1927; and Rossiter Johnson and John Howard 
Brown, eds., The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans: Brief Biographies 
of Authors, Administrators, Clergymen, Commanders, Editors, Engineers, Jurists, Merchants, 

Officials, Philanthropists, Scientists, Statesmen, and Others Who Are Making American History, vol. 

3 (Boston: The Biographical Society, 1904). 

8 Some interesting background about Dali and his travels from St. Michael Island to St. George Island 
is given by Harold F. Taggart, “Sealing on St. George Island, 1868,” The Pacific Historical Review 28, 
no. 4 (1959): 557. 

9 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 23. 

10 Dali, Alaska and Its Resources, 497. 

11 Ibid., 498. 

12 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 8, 237, citing U.S. Congress, House, 44th Cong., 1st sess., Ex. 
Doc. no. 83, 235. 

13 Ibid., 236. 

14 Donald J. Orth, Dictionary of Alaska Place Names, Geological Survey Paper 567 (Washington, DC: 
GPO, 1967), 11-2. 

15 Merriam, “Wm. Healey Dali,” Science-, and Rossiter Johnson and John Howard Brown, eds., The 
Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary, vol. 3. 

16 Orth, Dictionary, 12. 

17 Henry Cochran Slaymaker, History of the Descendants of Mathias Slaymaker (Lancaster, PA: 
Slaymaker, 1909), 219-23; General Friend Palmer, Early Days in Detroit (Detroit, MI: Hunt & 

June, 1906), 538-9, and 942; Nathaniel Bartlett Sylvester, History of Rensselaer County New York 
(Philadelphia, PA: Everts & Peck, 1880), 336-8; U.S. Census, 1900, Census District of Columbia, 
Washington City, 10A; Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, Frankfort, ICY, Vital 


219 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


Statistics Original Death Certificates, Certificate of Death no. 11993, microfilm 1911-1955; 
Arlington National Cemetery website, http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/wwduffield.htm (accessed 
Dec. 2008); “Gen. W. W. Duffield Dead,” Washington Post, June 23, 1907, 5; "Gen. Duffield Laid to 
Rest,” Washington Post, June 26, 1907, 5. 

18 S. D. Bingham, Early History of Michigan with Biographies of State Officers, Members of Congress, 
Judges and Legislators, Published Pursuant to Act 59, 1887 (Lansing, MI: Thorp & Godrey, 1888), 
238-9. 

19 “Gen. Duffield’s Important Office,” New York Times, Sept. 26, 1894, 4; and “Head of the Coast 
Survey,” Middletown Daily Argus (Middletown, NY), Oct. 9, 1894, 2. 

20 John Bersey, Cyclopedia of Michigan: Historical and Biographical Synopsis of General History of the 
State and Biographical Sketches of Men who Have in Their Various Spheres Contributed Toward its 
Development (NY and Detroit, MI: Western Publishing & Engraving, 1900), 313-4. 

21 “Work of the Coast and Geodetic Survey,” New York Times, Mar. 24, 1895, 26. 

22 Orth, Dictionary, 288. 

23 “Article 16—No Title,” New York Times, Aug. 23, 1895, 9. 

24 “Boundary Question Again,” New York Times, Aug. 1, 1897, 3. 

25 “Article 4—No Title,” New York Times, Sept. 3, 1897, 3. 

26 The 1898 Klondike gold rush served as the impetus to settle the boundary between Canada and the 
United States in the panhandle of Alaska, i.e., Southeast Alaska. The Canadians desired a boundary 
that would give them access to the sea via the heads of several estuaries or fjords along the coastal 
range of mountains. The United States sought a boundary 35 miles (56 km) easterly of the coastal 
range. The tribunal moved the United States’ claim a bit westward of its preferred boundary, but left 
it east of Skagway. The decision allowed access by river at only a single point. See Thomas A. Bailey, 
“Theodore Roosevelt and the Alaska Boundary Settlement,” in Alaska and Its History, ed. Morgan 
B. Sherwood (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1967), 383-93; and http://en.wikipedia.org/ 
wiki/Alaska_Boundary_Dispute (accessed May 09, 2009). 

27 Alaskan Boundary Tribunal of United States and Great Britain, Proceedings of the Alaskan Boundary 
Tribunal, Convened at London, Under the Treaty Between the United States of America and Great 
Britain, Concluded at Washington, January 24, 1903, for the Settlement of Questions Between 

the Two Countries with Respect to the Boundary Line Between the Territory of Alaska and the 
British Possessions in North America, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1904), 29-32; John W. Foster, 
Diplomatic Memoirs (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1909), vol. 2, 191-210; “Alaska Boundary 
Treaty, Secretary Hay and Ambassador Herbert Sign a Convention,” New York Times, Jan. 25, 1903, 

3; and James Morton Callahan, American Foreign Policy in Canadian Relations (NY: Cooper Square 
Publishers, Inc., 1967), 465-92. 

28 “Coast and Geodetic Survey,” New York Times, Oct. 28, 1897, 3; “Dr. Henry Smith Pritchett,” NOAA 
History, A Science Odyssey, http://www.history.noaa.gov/cgsbios/biopl5.html (accessed Dec. 27, 
2008). 

29 Orth, Dictionary, 12. 

30 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, May 25, 1897, 130-31. 

31 “Dunn, Poindexter, (1834 - 1914)” Library of Congress, Biographical Directory of the United States 
Congress, 1774-Present, http://bioguide.congress.gov (accessed Feb. 16, 2003); John Hallum, 
Biographical and Pictorial History of Arkansas (Albany, NY: Weed, Parsons, 1887), 471-2; and U.S. 
Census, 1860, 1870, 1880, and 1900. 


220 




E 


Elkins, Stephen Benton (1841-1911) 

Secretary of War, International Fur-Seal Arbitration, 1891-1893 
U.S. Senator, West Virginia, 1895-1911 

Genealogy 

Stephen Benton Elkins was born near New 
Lexington, Perry County, Ohio, on September 26, 

1841, to Philip Duncan Elkins and Sarah (Withers) 

Elkins. Stephen Benton Elkins married twice. 

Elkins married his first wife, Sarah Simms Jacobs, 
on June 10, 1866. Stephen and Sarah Elkins had 
two daughters: Katherine and Sarah. His second 
marriage, in 1875, was to Hallie Davis, daughter of 
Senator Henry Gassaway Davis of West Virginia. 

Stephen and Hallie Elkins produced five more 
children: Davis, Stephen B. Jr., Richard, Blaine, 
and Catherine Elkins. The senior Elkins died at 
Washington, D.C., on January 5, 1911. 1 



Biographical Sketch 

Stephen Elkins graduated from the University of 
Missouri at Columbia in 1860. He taught for a 
time but continued his studies in law and in 1864 
was admitted to the Missouri Bar. That same year 
he signed on as a cattle drover and ended up at Albuquerque in the New Mexico Territory. 


Stephen Benton Elkins. (Biographical 
Directory of the United States Congress, 
1774-Present.) 




221 










Pribilof Islands: The People 



Upon his arrival [in New Mexico], he began to learn 
Spanish so he could represent those living in the 
area. Within one year, the people so respected Elkins 
that they elected him to the territorial house of 
representatives. He served in that body from 1864 to 
1865, and then worked as territorial district attorney 
in 1866. President Andrew Johnson in 1867 named 
Elkins territorial attorney general and charged him 
with ending slavery in the territory. 2 

Elkins served as a U.S. district attorney from 
1870 to 1872. In a subsequent business career he 
became “a wealthy railroad baron by the 1880’s 
... a prosperous businessman who had invested in 
land and mining.” 3 

The 1910 U.S. Census taken at the town found¬ 
ed by Stephen Elkins in Randolph County, West 
Virginia, recorded his sons as having joined their 
father as railroad and mining executives. 


Stephen Benton Elkins. (Biographical 
Directory of the United States Congress, 
1774-Present.) 


Elkins spent the remainder of his life in gov¬ 
ernment service, ending with his time as U.S. 
Senator for West Virginia from 1895 to 1911. 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

Elkins had been an “American lawyer, industrialist, and political leader,” 4 and his political 
loyalties led to his service as Secretary of War beginning in 1891. During his tenure, the 
international dispute over pelagic sealing (the killing of seals in open waters) in the Bering 
Sea escalated and led to an International Tribunal of Arbitration at Paris, France. The 
Tribunal was expected to resolve the dispute over sovereign rights to the Bering Sea and 
a U.S. claim to sole ownership of northern fur seals, outside of Russia and Japan, follow¬ 
ing the purchase of Russian America. Elkins and Secretary of State James Gillespie Blaine, 
both members of President Benjamin Harrison’s (1889-1893) Cabinet, spoke fervently 
against pelagic sealing. Harrison’s administration argued for “an international agreement 
under which the sealing interests of the United States might be fairly protected and the 
seals of the Northern Pacific Ocean saved from wanton destruction.” 

The former [1885-1889] Secretary [Thomas Francis] Bayard had not contended for any 
exclusive jurisdiction on the part of the United States in the waters of Bering Sea beyond 
the ordinary limit of a marine league from the coast. His negotiations were interrupted 
after the failure to ratify the treaty relating to the Atlantic fisheries, and the result of the 
political canvass of 1888 had prevented their resumption. The subject was necessarily 
opened by Mr. Harrison’s Administration in consequence of the seizure of British vessels 
in the effort to prevent unauthorized sealing within what were legally designated as the 
Waters of Alaska. 5 

Newspapers quickly linked the outspoken criticisms against pelagic sealing by the 
wealthy and influential Secretary of War, Stephen Elkins, to his social, political and finan¬ 
cial affiliations with the owners of the North American Commercial Company (NACC). 


222 






Biographies E ♦ Elkins - Elliott 


After the NACC received the highly contentious and much sought-after twenty-year mo¬ 
nopoly to harvest the fur seal (1890-1909), critics portrayed Elkins and the NACC as a 
single entity. Headlines in the New York Times and Washington Post referred to the com¬ 
pany as “Elkins’s Company” as in the following New York Times article of June 20, 1891: 

ELKINS’S COMPANY PROTESTS 
IT WILL CLAIM DAMAGES—IT ALSO OFFERS SOME ADVICE. 

Washington, June 19.—The North American Commercial Company of San Francisco, 
lessee of the right to take fur seal on the islands of St. Paul and St. George in Alaska, for the 
period of twenty years from May 1, 1890, have filed a protest with the Acting Secretary of 
the Treasury against a close season. 6 

The company represents that it has faithfully complied with all requirements of the law and 
has obeyed all orders and directions of the Secretary of the Treasury relating to the same. 

It calls attention to the fact that the lease to them was let under contract and that, relying 
upon the Government’s assurance, it agreed to pay a sum three times greater than that paid 
by the former lessee. 7 

Elkins’ Executive Department position failed to alter the Treasury Department’s de¬ 
cision to limit sealing on the Pribilof Islands, thereby denying the NACC the right to 
exercise its original lease term to take 100,000 seals per year. During its first year the 
company secured 25,152 sealskins and in 1896 it secured 30,004. Annual takes during 
its twenty-year lease typically varied from approximately 7,000 to 19,000. 8 The govern¬ 
ment reportedly received $3,235,063 in gross revenues from the NACC, while it spent 
$5,472,607 to protect the fur seals during the 20-year leasing period. The result was a net 
revenue loss of $2,237,544. 9 

After President Harrison failed to secure a second term in office, Stephen B. Elkins 
returned to private practice in 1893. 


Elliott, Alexandra (Aleksandra) Milovidov (1856-1949) 

Daughter of St. Paul Island Russian Governor Alexander Milovidov 
Instructor of Russian Language and Wife of Henry Wood Elliot 

Genealogy 

Alexandra Milovidov Elliott was born on March 27, 1856, at Kodiak, Russian America, 
the first of two daughters of Russian-American Company Agent Alexander (Aleksandr 
Alfeev) Milovidov and his wife Alexandra (Aleksandra Mikhailova) Kaminsky (Kaminskii) 
Milovidov, a Creole. Alexander Milovidov moved his family to St. Paul Island during 
1861. At the age of sixteen, 10 Alexandra married Assistant U.S. Treasury Agent Henry 
Wood Elliott, nine years her senior, at St. Paul Island on July 21, 1872. The couple’s first 
child, Grace, was born on the island in 1873. After Grace’s birth, the family moved over 
to St. George where they spent the summer. 

Later that year, Henry, Alexandra, and Grace Elliott resettled in Henry’s hometown 
of Rockport (later Lakewood), Ohio. Henry and Alexandra Elliott raised ten children: 
Grace (1873-1980), born on St. Paul Island; Flora (1876-1974), who married John N. 


223 






Pribilof Islands: The People 



ALEXANDRA MELOVIDOFF ELLIOTT 
This photo was taken shortly after her marriage in 1872. Picture loaned tlurough 
courtesy of her daughter, Ruth (Mrs. Juines Brayton of Indianapolis, Indiana) 


Alexandra Milovidov Elliott. Courtesy of 
her daughter Ruth Brayton. (Butler, The 
Lakewood Story, p. 101.) 


Dodd (1872-1972), an engineer and Princeton 
graduate (Class of 1893); Marsha (born 1877); 
Frank Rice (1880-1966), the only child to remain 
near Lakewood; Ruth (born 1883), who married 
James Brayton and lived in Indianapolis, Indiana; 
Edith Alexandra (1886-1985), who worked as 
a Seattle schoolteacher for 47 years; Narene 11 
(1888-1940), who became a nurse and married 
Benjamin B. Mozee; Henry Lionel (1890-1982); 
John (1894-1975); and Louise Ella (1899-1977). 12 

Narene Elliott and Benjamin Mozee ex¬ 
changed vows in the church where her parents 
had wed on St. Paul Island. 13 The Mozees resided 
in Alaska, where Benjamin worked as a teacher, 
later as a U.S. marshal, and then as superinten¬ 
dent of the Alaska Reindeer Service. 14 Narene 
Elliott Mozee was mysteriously slain aboard 
a Great Lakes cruise ship on July 29, 1940. Her 
body washed ashore on Lake Erie near Astabula, 
Ohio. 15 

Alexandra Milovidov died in California in 
1949. 


Biographical Sketch 

Alexandra Milovidov and Henry Elliott married at the Church of Saints Peter and Paul 
on St. Paul Island, Alaska, on July 21, 1872 (see next page). Some historians have offered 
that the couple was wed at Unalaska, 250 miles to the south, because there was no resi¬ 
dent priest in the Pribilofs at that time. One source specifically (and erroneously) stated, 
“Visiting priest Nikolai F. Kovrigin of Sitka performed the ceremony [at Unalaska]. Six 
witnesses included prominent representatives of the Alaska Commercial Company.” 16 
Father Nikolai of Sitka was indeed away on visitation, but not at Unalaska at the time of 
Alexandra’s marriage; he was at St. Paul Island. Father Nikolai had boarded the ship H.M. 
Hutchinson at Unalaska and traveled to St. Paul Island to perform his parochial duties. 
Several excerpts from Agent Charles Bryant’s Log place him on St. Paul in July: 

Friday July 19, 1872 

During the night the Alaska Commercial Company’s Steam Schooner H.M. Hutchinson, 

[arrived] with Capt A. Nielson, one of the firms making the annual visit to their different 
trading posts in the Territory. The schooner also has unloaded a passenger Father Nicholi 
[sic], a priest of the Russian Greek Church making a tour to minister to the spiritual wants 
of the people. [The] vessel has also several other passengers. [A]fter breakfast the party 
landed and the weather being foul the vessel got under weigh [sic] and stood out to sea for 
an offing [word legibility uncertain]. Father Nicholi proceeding at once to his parochial 
duties. 


224 













Biographies E ♦ Elliott 


Saturday July 20th 

In the evening four native couples were married by the priest. 

Sunday July 21st 

Weather hazy with light west wind and fog at times in afternoon. Schooner H.M. 

Hutchinson came to anchor off the East Landing. 

In the evening Assistant Treas. Agent Henry W. Eliott [sic] was joined in marriage to Miss 
Alexandra Melovedoff according to the rites of the Greek Church of which the bride is a 
member. 17 

The day after the wedding Henry Elliott wrote to “My dear old Friend,” William H. 
Dali, about his bride: 

Captain Niebaum will tell you of my marriage to the daughter of the late Russian Governor 
of the Island and as we have a good piano here and Mrs. Bryant’s society, I think she’ll make 
quite a woman for any position in life, even though she was born and raised in Alaska: 
her physique is superb and she is exceedingly quick and ambitious of learning. She is my 
"voucher of no uncertain signature” for the Russian language, which I now begin to use 
quite freely. 18 

Elliott’s later critics, and they were many, charged that he often sought to elevate him¬ 
self by association. Although the record indicates that he did frequently use other people 
for his own gain, his marriage does not seem to be such an instance. However, Alexandra 
was instrumental in Elliott’s understanding of Aleut folk lore and historical Russian re¬ 
cords, 19 such as Ivan Veniaminov’s Zapiski ob ostrovakh Unalashkinskago otdeyla (Notes 
on the Islands of the Unalashka District ), which Elliott applied to his various writings. As 
best he could Henry Elliott protected his Alaskan Creole wife from the cruel disparage¬ 
ment of the often racist society of the time. 20 

In an 1873 letter, Henry Elliott wrote to Dali, his former roommate at the Smithsonian, 
as he, Alexandra, and their baby Grace departed the island. He quipped, “Don’t throw in 
any sarcasm about the baby here, I tell you my wife is a splendid little woman and the 
baby is ‘the very image’ etc.” 21 Author Margaret Manor Butler later reflected on Alexandra 
Elliott: 

In 1873 he brought his young wife and baby daughter Grace back home to Rockport. 

Residents were very friendly to the petite brown-eyed Russian wife, who found English 
such a difficult language. They admired her beauty and her long black hair—so long she 
could sit on it. She loved flowers and gardening and was very devoted to her growing 

family, which finally numbered ten children-When Alexandra was first introduced 

to Cleveland social circles, she created quite a stir. Friends and curious acquaintances 
deposited their decorated calling cards and stayed for a brief chat with the very young 
and attractive Mrs. Elliott. Her beauty was something to be talked about—blue black hair 
arranged in a coiled braid on top of her head, clear beautiful skin, a petite figure, and brown 
eyes with a depth of understanding that bridged the gap of language, and a ready smile that 
won her a host of friends. 

It was she who before long assumed the responsibility of raising their ten children in a 
strange land, while her husband found his life work in Alaska and Washington, D.C. His 
career proved a turbulent one, and the commotion in a household of twelve seemed mild in 
contrast to the confusion in congressional circles.” 

The long absences of Alexandra’s husband, coupled with his devotion to the fur seal 
cause, presumably led to the couple’s separation by 1920. Thereafter, individual members 

IX 


225 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


of the family moved west—Grace to California farm country, and Lionel, John, Louise, 
Edith, and Marsha to Seattle, Washington. Alexandra remained in Lakewood with her 
son Frank for a time but, by 1930, she had joined her daughter Grace near San Francisco. 
The 1930 U.S. Census recorded her as Alexandra Melovidoff rather than Elliott. She re¬ 
mained in California farm country until her death in 1949. After her mother’s death, 
Grace moved to Seattle, Washington. 23 


Elliott, Henry Wood (1846-1930) 

Naturalist, Artist, and Conservationist, circa 1860-1930 

Assistant Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Pribilof Islands, 1872-1873 

Congressional approval to visit islands, July 14-August 3, 1874 

Congressional appointment to investigate the Pribilof fur-seal herd, May 21-August 10, 
1890 

Congressional appointment to investigate the Pribilof Islands, July 1913 

Genealogy 

Henry Wood Elliott was born on November 13, 1846, at 
Cleveland, Ohio, to Franklin Reuben Elliott, a horticultur¬ 
ist, and Sophia Appolonia (Hopkins) Elliott. At the time, the 
family lived in “the old Governor [Reuben] Wood mansion 
in Rocky River [Ohio] where their children, Henry Wood, 
Frank, Katherine, Cara, and Cora were born.” 24 Henry was 
apparently given his middle name after the prestigious 
Governor Wood of Ohio, in whose former home the Elliott 
family resided. 25 At twenty-five, Henry Wood Elliott married 
a sixteen-year-old Creole named Alexandra Milovidov 26 at 
St. Paul Island on July 21,1872. 2 Alexandra was the daughter 
of Alexander and Alexandra Kaminsky Milovidov. Alexander 
Milovidov was the last governor on the Seal Islands for the 
Russian-American Company (see Alexandra Elliott’s biog¬ 
raphy). Henry and Alexandra Elliott’s first child, Grace, was born on St. Paul in 1873. 
After leaving the Seal Islands, the Elliott family grew to include ten children while living 
at Lakewood (previously Rockport), Ohio. From their home in Lakewood, Henry regu¬ 
larly commuted to Washington, D.C., and intermittently to Alaska. Eventually he went 
into debt (see endnote 42), and he and Alexandra separated for unknown reasons. Henry 
Wood Elliott died at age eighty-four in Seattle, Washington, on May 25, 1930. 28 

Biographical Sketch 

Henry Wood Elliott’s father, Franklin Elliott, was a close friend of physician and natural 
scientist Dr. Jared P. Kirtland, who founded the Cleveland Academy of Science. Despite 
some significant financial setbacks, Franklin Elliott managed to purchase a 22-acre lot in 



Henry Wood Elliott at twen¬ 
ty-four years of age. (SIA RU 
7177, box 3, 90-3131.) 


226 






Biographies E ♦ Elliott 


Rockport, Ohio, next door to Dr. Kirtland, who helped 
him to procure the land. Franklin then “concentrated 
his energy in turning the place into a paradise with 
rare shrubs and flowers and fruit trees of every va¬ 
riety,” 2C ' as well as tennis courts, grape vineyards, 
summer houses, winding paths, and a pond with a 
large collection of goldfish. Franklin Elliott eventually 
published the widely acclaimed Elliott’s Fruit Book; 
or the American Fruit-Grower’s Guide in Orchard 
and Garden. It was in this setting that the adolescent 
Henry began developing his artistic talent. Through 
his father’s scientific associations with men such as 
Smithsonian Secretary Joseph Henry and Assistant 
Secretary Spencer Baird, Henry would springboard 
into renown and occasional notoriety. 30 






.y£.t 

J&rm A'l 


'S, /'( 


Henry Wood Elliott at age fifteen. 
(SIA, RU 95, box 7, folder 53, 83- 
6919.) 


Henry’s father secured a position for his six- 
teen-year-old son, 31 who was still in high school, 
under Joseph Henry, Secretary of the Smithsonian 
Institution. Many of Elliott’s contemporaries were 
uncertain as to whether Henry had just an honor¬ 
ary position, as suggested by Elliott historian Robert 

Shalkop, 32 or whether he had no official, professional affiliation at all with the presti¬ 
gious institution, even though he boarded there during his early years and kept in com¬ 
munication with senior members of the institution. The U.S. House Ways and Means 

Committee queried Elliott about his affilation 
with the Smithsonian Institution during its 1876 
inquiry into the business affairs of the Alaska 
Commercial Company: 


Joseph Henry, first Secretary of the 
Smithsonian Institution. (NOAA People 
Collection, http://www.photolib.noaa. 
gov/700s/pers0124.jpg [accessed June 12, 


Q. You are connected with the Smithsonian? 

A. I am an associate of the Smithsonian. They give 
me a room where I sleep, and a working-room, in 
return for my voluntary services as a collector. 33 

In 1884, he answered a similar question asked 
by Congressman Morrison, chairman of the same 
committee, “I thought that you were connected 
with the Smithsonian Institution.” Elliott replied, 
“Only as an associate and collaborateur’.’ 34 During 
his early years at the Smithsonian, the young 
Elliott met and roomed with William H. Dali, 
who would become a leading scientist and rec¬ 
ognized authority on the subject of Alaska (see 
Dali’s biography). Dali also spoke before a con- 


2009].) 


227 




Pribilof Islands: The People_ 

gressional committee about Elliott’s affiliation 
with the Smithsonian: 

Elliott occasionally occupied a sleeping cuddy 
in one of the towers in exchange for voluntary 
service—a loose connection he readily admitted. 35 

Elliott’s Smithsonian experience may have in¬ 
advertently taught him to seek advantage in order 
to compete among formally trained academics, 
as it appears he never completed high school. 
Through their Smithsonian connections, Elliott 
and William Dali acquired positions with the 
1865-1867 Western Union Telegraph Expedition 
(aka Collins Overland Expedition, and the 
Russian-American Telegraph Expedition). The 
Expedition was divided into three divisions: 
Canadian, Russian American, and Asian. 36 Dali 
and Elliott socialized together during that time, 
but the two later took separate paths. Dali went to 
Russian America and the Yukon River area, and 
Elliott went with the Canadian Division, where he 
became a telegraph operator. In 1867, the Expedition was terminated because the Trans- 
Siberian telegraph was no longer considered practical. However, Dali stayed in Alaska 
to conduct further exploration until 1868, while Elliott stayed in Canada as a telegraph 
operator until circa 1870. 

Elliott’s interests in natural history waned due to his growing interest in the telegraph. 
He became an expert telegraph operator with the Canadian Division. Self-conscious 
about his change of heart for natural history, Elliott wrote to Professor Joseph Henry, his 
mentor at the Smithsonian: 

As month after month has passed by the mortifying thought of my failure to make, 
and send to the Smithsonian a Natural History Collection!.] [My failure to make such a 
collection] has caused me to burn several letters that have been written for my friends at 
the Smithsonian. 37 

Elliott also wrote: 

I am much pleased with the telegraph business and they tell me that I have acquired it very 

rapidly having had about six months practice-Please ... tell them [the Baird family and 

others] that so completely devoid of romance or interest has wild life become to me, that I 
cannot bring myself to write to them of it. 38 

Henry Elliott’s romance with the telegraph waned quickly. In 1871, he accepted 
a position as the official artist for the Hayden Survey of the Yellowstone region. 39 The 
survey’s prominent guest artists, Thomas Moran and William Henry Jackson, became 
Elliott’s mentors, and it was their art works, rather than Elliott’s, that filled most of the 
illustrated pages in Hayden’s report, the document that convinced Congress to designate 
Yellowstone as the nation’s first National Park in 1872. 40 From this experience, Elliott 



Spencer Fullerton Baird, Assistant 
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 
(NOAA People Collection, http://www. 
photolib.noaa.gov/htmls/pers0097.htm 
[accessed June 12, 2009].) 


228 










Biographies E ♦ Elliott 



1870 Hayden Expedition, Red Buttes, Wyoming Territory. From left to right, seated: Charles S. 
Turnbull, physician; John Warren Beaman, meteorologist; Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden, director, 

U.S. Geological Survey; Professor Cyrus Thomas, agricultural statistician and entomologist; a hunter 
named Raphael; A. L. Ford; and standing: two cooks; S. R. Gifford, guest; Henry W. Elliott, artist; 
James Stevenson, managing director; H. D. Schmidt; E. Campbell Carrington, zoologist; L. A. Bartlett; 
William Henry Jackson, photographer. United States Geological Survey, August 24, 1870. (Photo: W. H. 
Jackson. NAA 34,065-P; OPPS neg. 17236.) 


likely grasped the significance of landscape art as an influence on public opinion, and 
his association with Moran and Jackson could only have helped him to develop his own 
artistic mastery. But Dali’s 1870 Alaska and Its Resources probably inspired Elliott even 
more. In April 1872, Elliott wrote his former roommate: 

Dear Dali, I am going to St. Pauls [sic] nominally as an Agent of the Government assisting 
Capt. Bryant but really to make as big a collection as I can and collect as much material 
for a monograph of the Seal Islands as I can during my stay out there which keeps me until 
October 1873. 41 

One biographer described Henry Wood Elliott’s personality as “dogmatic, logical, in¬ 
temperate, courageous, tactless, idealistic, and fundamentally quixotic, suffering many 
defeats with undiminished faith in the final triumph of justice. We find scant reference, 
however, to any aspect of his life not related to seals.” 42 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Henry Wood Elliott arrived at the Seal Islands on April 24, 1872, before the appearance 
of any significant numbers of migratory wildlife. While he dreamed of making a mark for 


229 









Pribilof Islands: The People 


himself as a natural historian, he could not have envisioned what challenges and oppor¬ 
tunities lay before him. 

Beginning with Elliott’s first St. Paul assignment, and with some poetic license, author 
James Thomas Gay praised Elliott’s devotion to the conservation of the fur seal. 

From the first day he landed on the islands and viewed the staggering spectacle of countless 
seals on the rookeries, his fascination ripened [Elliott landed in April when seals are 
essentially absent from the islands; if any were present it wasn’t a “staggering spectacle’’]. 

Soon he developed such a passionate interest in the animals that his observations, study 
and note taking occupied most of his time. He made numerous sketches and drawings 
of seal life as well as of the islanders. It was from these early experiences on the islands, 
apparently, that Elliott developed his life-long admiration for the fur seal. 43 

Soon after his arrival at the Seal Islands, Elliott felt less suited for his official role of 
Treasury Agent. He determined to devote his energies more appropriately, as expressed 
in a May 1872 letter to his mentor of sorts, Professor Spencer Baird: 

As soon as I shall have finished my work this summer on St. George I shall come down and 
resign my position as Government Agent for I wish to retire into private life where I can 
devote myself entirely to art for I have already made such progress with the management 
of color during the past winter that I do not fear entering into competition with the best of 
artists. 

I now have painted a gallery of seventy five pictures eighteen inches by twelve which 
illustrate the wonderful life on these Islands and the peculiarities of Bering Sea. This 
series of paintings I value at $15,000. The copyright alone to it I shall dispose of to some 
leading photographer for a sum not less than $5000 - and have made from it a series of 
transparencies or glass slides for a lime lighted magic lantern to illustrate a lecture which I 
have prepared upon the subject. 44 

Also, in 1872 Elliott wrote: 

See about getting my successor, for there is work yet for scientific collections, and by that 
procedure prevent some dissatisfied pothouse politician from coming up and making 
mischief. 45 

Henry Elliott’s credentials as a naturalist and artist, especially on the subject of the 
Seal Islands, would grow over the next four decades, and he would speak before vari¬ 
ous congressional committees on numerous occasions, either lobbying to protect the fur 
seals or as a witness during investigations of misconduct by leasing companies and/or 
government officials. 

I first visited those islands in April 1872, by the joint action of Prof. Spencer F. Baird, 
then assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and Secretary Boutwell, Treasury 
Department. The Secretary allowed me to go up as an assistant Treasury agent, with 
the distinct understanding that I was to be allowed time to engage in these (sealing) 
investigations, 46 and when through, to return without leave of absence. When I got up 
there I had an idea that I should be able to come back the same year, 47 but I found things so 
different from what I had understood, that I made another visit in 1874, under authority of 
a special act of Congress; and again in 1876, on my own responsibility. 48 

As previously suggested, it remains unclear whether Elliott received his commission 
as assistant Treasury agent to actually study fur seals, as some authors maintain, 49 or as 
his letter to Dali suggested, he withheld his own agenda to write a “monograph of the Seal 
Islands” from his Smithsonian benefactors and employer. Regardless, he did correspond 


230 




231 


Henry W. Elliott on horseback during the Hayden Expedition to Yellowstone, 1871. (Photo: W. H. Jackson. S1A 2003-90-3132, RU 7177, box 3, 
folder 36) 










Pribilof Islands: The People 


frequently with Professor Baird at the Smithsonian, who thus kept abreast of Elliott’s 
findings on the Seal Islands. 50 

In pursuit of compiling his monograph, Elliott sought out scientist Dr. Elliott Coues, 
who, in 1872, had just published his famous Key to North American Birds. Elliott sent 
Coues bird specimens he collected on the Pribilofs for identification, along with his field 
notes. Although Elliott implied in a letter to Dali that he (H. W. Elliott) would write the 
chapter on ornithology, that did not come to pass. 51 By the fall of 1873, Elliott had pro¬ 
duced his monograph, Report of the Prybilov Group, or Seal Islands, of Alaska, but Dr. 
Coues wrote the chapter titled “Ornithology of the Prybilov Islands,” an impressive ad¬ 
dition to Elliott’s 1873 manuscript. 52 Unfortunately for both authors, some statements in 
Elliott’s report outraged Secretary of the Treasury William Richardson. Elliott had written 
numerous vulgar comments about Alaska Natives. For example: “I cannot speak highly of 
their chastity [although] the women seldom sell themselves.” 53 Also, “These people are ex¬ 
ceedingly thoughtless and improvident, shiftless and dirty, all exist, even the best of them, 
as a matter of course, with one or two exceptions, in a state of profound ignorance.” 54 He 
also made unfavorable allegations against the government, charging that agents on the 
island were “entirely incompetent or dishonest.” Secretary Richardson ordered the Report 
pulled off the Government Printing Office’s press, and the already-printed copies were 
discarded in a trash bin. 

Elliott claimed that only seventy-five copies of his work were printed before the press 
was shut down. Purportedly, he recovered all seventy-five copies from the trash. 55 Only 
a few are known to remain today. 56 James E. Harting’s The Fauna of the Prybilov Islands 
included excerpts about fauna from Elliott’s contraband Report of the Prybilov Group, or 
Seal Islands, of Alaska. Harting stated in his Preface: 


REPORT 

PRYBILOV GROUP. OR SEAL ISLANDS, OF ALASKA. 

HENRY W. ELLIOTiT, 

AlSISTkMT fkCUirt JULIUHT p Z-TIMHtNf 


WASHINGTON: 

aorimivT psixiisg office. 
1S33. 


Cover of Henry Wood Elliott’s unpublished 1873 book, Report of the Prybilov Group, or Seal 
Islands, of Alaska. 


232 





Biographies E ♦ Elliott 


During the early part of 1874 (Dr. Coues informs 
me that the work referred to, although dated 
1873, was not actually published until either 
January or February 1874), a valuable report on 
this remarkable group of islands, by Mr. H. W. 

Elliott and Dr. Elliott Coues, was published by the 
American Government. As I learn from one of the 
authors that only seventy-five copies of the work 
were issued, and as I have reason to believe, the 
only copy in England is the one now before me. 

Subsequent to his failed attempt to publish 
his monograph, Elliott submitted A Report upon 
the Condition of Affairs in the Territory of Alaska 
on November 16, 1874. Published in 1875 by the 
Government Printing Office, the Report included 
observations on Alaska in general as well as on the 
Pribilof Islands. The chapters in the Report about 
the Pribilofs were similar to the material present¬ 
ed in Elliott’s “unpublished” monograph, minus 
the illustrations. 57 For example, Chapter Seven, 

“The Habits of the Fur Seal, Etc.,” and Chapter 
Nine, “Ornithology of the Prybilov Islands,” in the 
Report are nearly verbatim versions of the mate¬ 
rial in Elliott’s 1873 (printed 1874) monograph, under the headings “The Seal-Life on the 
Prybilov Islands” and “Ornithology of the Prybilov Islands,” respectively. However, the 
offending material did not appear in the 1875 report. 

An ornately bound version of the Report in the authors’ possession has “Elliott 1874” 
imprinted on the cover’s spine, and “1875” on the internal cover page. It does not in¬ 
clude either the maps or the illustrations that Elliott referred to in his cover letter to the 
Secretary of the Treasury, 58 nor in his letters to his friend William H. Dali. 

As I think it not at all unlikely but that I shall meet you in San Francisco next Spring I have 
not thought it worth while to write much about my work, etc, there is so much to say and 
discuss which becomes confusion worse confounded when put back and forth upon paper: 
a memoir upon the Prybilov Islands is now passing through the press illustrated by 50 
plates, 9 by 6 inches, royal quarto, and a detailed chapter upon the ornithology by Elliott 
Coues based upon my MS.S. and material. 59 

I will have a few copies ready for me in fixing legislation very soon but Heaven only knows 
when my plates will be ready for the binder. 60 

If a version of the 1874/1875 Report was published with Elliott’s illustrations, the au¬ 
thors did not locate it during the course of their research. 

Elliott eventually achieved his personal goal of producing a natural history mono¬ 
graph about the Pribilof Islands. 61 In 1881, the Government Printing Office published A 
Monograph of the Pribylov Group, or Seal Islands of Alaska; 62 the Monograph included il¬ 
lustrations other than those in the 1873 “unpublished” version. The Monograph was sub¬ 
sequently reprinted as Tlie History and Present Condition of the Fishery Industries, The 


THE FAUNA 

PRYBILOV ISLANDS 


ABRIDGED PROM THE 


* Report on the Prybilov Group or Seal Islands of Alaska 
by Henry IV. Eluott ; with an Appendix on the 
Ornithology by Dr. Eluott Coues ( Washington, 1873). 


By J. E. HARTING, FX.S. F.Z 3 . 


2 To 


LONDON 


REPRINTED FROM THE NATURAL HISTORY COLUMNS OF 
•THE HELD" FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION 
««7S 
C-' 


Cover of The Fauna of the Prybilov Islands. 


233 








Pribilof Islands: The People 


Seal Islands of Alaska, Section IX [Monograph 
A] of the Tenth Census of the United States. The 
full U.S. Bureau of Census, 10th Census, was not 
published until 1883-1884; this apparent anoma¬ 
ly between publication dates has confused efforts 
to identify the seemingly disparate documents 
with the same or similar title. 63 To add to the con¬ 
fusion, a revised edition was published in 1882, 
under the same title. 64 

Elliott continued to write for the govern¬ 
ment about his observations on the Seal Islands. 
In 1890, in response to a report submitted by 
Treasury Agent Charles Goff, Congress passed 
an “order of special act approved April 5, 1890” 
to revisit the condition of the fur-seal fisher¬ 
ies of Alaska. 65 Goff had alleged that the Alaska 
Commercial Company was taking undersized 
seals and that the fur-seal herd was in serious de¬ 
cline. Elliott was charged by Congress with leading the investigation, and Charles Goff 
assisted him. In 1896, Congress issued the Report Upon The Present Condition Of The 
Fur-Seal Rookeries Of The Pribilov Islands Of Alaska, 66 which included current (1890) il¬ 
lustrations and maps of the seal rookeries. As will be discussed, the report would lead to 
significant changes in wildlife conservation efforts and in the management of the Pribilof 
Islands regarding the fur seals and the Unaagin (the Aleuts of the Pribilof Islands). In 1898, 
the Government Printing Office published Elliott's observations from 1872-1874 and 
from 1890 in a compendium titled Fur-Seal Fisheries. None of these post-1873 publica¬ 
tions included forty-nine plates that were part of his “unpublished” monograph. 67 These 
fine examples of his artistry were likely a portion of those that Elliott desired to sell later 
for $15,000. 

When Elliott returned to the Pribilof Islands in 1890, the North American Commercial 
Company (NACC) had replaced the Alaska Commercial Company (ACC) as the govern¬ 
ment’s lessee. Consequently, the NACC and not the ACC was subjected to Elliott’s wrath 
over the decimation of the seal herd. At this juncture Elliott became an untiring advo¬ 
cate for the preservation of the fur seal. However, the U.S. government and commercial 
sealing interests were not yet ready for the concept of wildlife conservation. In 1905, in 
partnership with U.S. Secretary of State John Hay, Elliott drafted a treaty for managing 
the seal herds, but politics, including the end of Hay’s tenure, interfered. Unwilling to 
give up, yet frustrated by his inability to sway Congress, Elliott sought the assistance of 
other influential men dedicated to the conservation cause. He apparently also finally ac¬ 
knowledged his own boisterous and bullying flaws and approached a potential advocate, 
Dr. William T. Hornaday, Director of the New York Zoological Gardens, to speak on his 
behalf. Hornaday is credited with saving the American bison from extinction. He was 
also an esteemed member of the board of governors of the Camp-Fire Club of America, 



The cover of Henry Wood Elliott’s 1881 
monograph, The History and Present 
Condition of the Fishery Industries: The 
Seal Islands of Alaska. 


234 





















Biographies E ♦ Elliott 



THE LANDING, ST. GEORGE’S VILLAGE. 


Elliott on St. George Island in 1890. (The Cosmopolitan, vol. 13, no 1, May 1892, p. 248.) 


an organization of hunters and naturalists (see Hornaday’s biography). Finally Elliott’s 
conservationist passion met with some success. 

In 1911, Russia, Japan, Great Britain, and the United States, the four nations most 
concerned with sealing, signed a treaty outlawing open-water sealing and accepting 
on-shore management of the seal herds by the United States. The Convention between 
the United States and Other Powers Providing for the Preservation and Protection of Fur 
Seals, popularly known as the Fur-Seal Treaty of 1911, was the first international treaty to 
address wildlife conservation. 

**** 


To his detriment, Henry W. Elliott initiated backdoor attacks on friends and associ¬ 
ates who, in his mind, competed with him as experts on the subject of Alaska and more 
specifically the Pribilof Islands and fur seals. Others (e.g., Victor B. Scheffer et al., Flistory 
of Scientific Study, Lisa Marie Morris, Keeper of the Seal, and William T. Hornaday, Thirty 
Years War for Wild Life: Gains and Losses in the Thankless Task) have touched upon the 
negative aspects of Elliott’s character, but a full retrospection awaits a seriously inclined 
student, who will have much to ponder in some of Elliott’s more caustic writings. For 
example: 


May 1872 

This exhibition of seal life ... is really a wonderful sight and it has thus far been touched by 
Dali and Bryant in the most superficial manner, especially Dali. That which Capt. Bryant 
has written is full of error from beginning to end-Allen’s paper 68 is much in error. 59 


235 

























































Pribilof Islands: The People 


May 1873 

Dear Professor Baird:... To my great surprise, the result of a years observation and 
survey among the Seals and over the Island of St. Pauls, proves [all emphasis by Elliott] 
conclusively that almost every statement made by Capt. Bryant, Dali, and Scammon on this 
subject of the Seal life, is not correct, and in nine paragraphs out of every ten in Capt B’s 
“Account of the Habits etc” in the Bulletin M. C. Zool. Vol. II no. 1 [“On the habits of the 
Northern Fur Seal (Callorhinus ursinus Gray), with a Description of the Pribyloff Group 
of Islands.” Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology 2 (1): 89-108. 1870], the very 
reverse of his statement exists and occurs ! I have in consequence of all this fanciful and 
garbled work of Bryant, Dali and Scammon, given attention to every point, no matter how 
minute and have spared no physical exertion or exposure in order that I might arrive at the 
truth and have subsequent observers endorse my work and confirm my theories. 0 

Soon after Elliott wrote to Baird criticizing Dali, he wrote to Dali with an apparent 
air of friendship. 

Dear Dali:... have finished my Memoir upon the Seal Life of these Islands.... My work 
upon the Seals will be rough for Scammon, Bryant, and others but it cannot be helped; 
these gentlemen have been far too superficial in their examinations and have published 
authoritatively incorrect, glaringly so, statements, concerning the Fur Seal of the North 
Pacific.... I regret exceedingly not to have a meeting with you.... the heartfelt hope that 
you will be successful both for this season and the next, I am ever your friend, 

Henry W. Elliott. 71 

Later surveys and writings by others, such as Joseph Stanley-Brown, David Starr 
Jordan, and Victor B. Scheffer, challenged Elliott’s own descriptions of the seal rookeries 
and seal behavior. Spencer Baird wrote to William Dali: 

I always knew that our lively Henry was mendacious, but did not suppose he could manage 
to get quite so far from the truth as in the account of the condition of your Collection at the 
Smithsonian.... It will give me great pleasure to choke Henry, for telling such lies. 72 

Nonetheless, the aspiring artist and naturalist’s public and congressional popularity 
rose during the 1870s to the early 1880s as “Elliott soon gained a reputation as an author¬ 
ity not only on the Alaska fur seal but on the whole territory.” 7,3 His views met with disfa¬ 
vor with some politicians, scientists and businessmen, however, “during the last decade 
of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th century [when] the seal herd 
was rapidly declining in number, . . . Henry W. Elliott was goading public officials and 
harrying businessmen, large and small, who were continuing to reap profitable harvests 
of sealskins.” 74 

Over the years Elliott lectured and published many popular articles and books using 
his illustrations to spark audience interest. 75 He collaborated with internationally rec¬ 
ognized artist Henry Sandham for an article “Leo Marinus, The Sea-King,” in Scribner’s 
Monthly of October 1878. His popular 1886 book Our Arctic Province finally gave Elliott 
an even greater audience beyond the scientific field. Articles and books such as these, 
along with his art, propelled him into mainstream celebrity as an authority on Alaska. 

After his 1890 visit to the Pribilof Islands, Elliott argued for the next twenty years 
for the cessation of the killing of the northern fur seal on land and at sea. Then in 1907, 
Elliott, when asked if he was paid for any of his services, disclosed his clandestine link to 
the ACC with the following statement before the House Committee of Ways and Means: 


236 









“I was paid for it; I was well paid for it. [Hearing 
before Committee of Ways and Means, January 
25, 1907, p. 69, MS].” 76 

Unfortunately for Elliott, his unsubstantiated 
“scientific observations,” 7 ’ his obnoxious reputa¬ 
tion, and his surreptitious relationship with the 
ACC, which had begun at least as early as 1876, 
made him an unwelcome lobbyist in Washington 
political circles. 

In 1911, the House of Representatives held a 
hearing led by the Committee on Expenditures 
in the Department of Commerce and Labor, To 
Investigate the Fur-Seal Industry of Alaska. The 
committee’s report included various sources de¬ 
scribing Elliott’s relationship with the ACC, and 
the findings further impugned Elliott’s reputa¬ 
tion. Nonetheless, in reply to the specific ques¬ 
tion, “Were you not an employee of the Alaska 
Commercial Co.?” Henry Elliott replied, “No sir; I 
never was an employee of the Alaska Commercial 
Co.” 8 However, additional congressional com¬ 
mittee responses included: 

[Henry Elliott] Entered the service of [the Alaska 
Commercial Company] two years after his 
employment in the Treasury [i.e. 1876] as “counsel 
and adviser” and “under salary of the company” (p. 
36, H.R. 2027, 48th Cong., 1st sess.) 79 and [Elliott] 
“accepted and had at their hands a retainer to 
appear whenever it was necessary, from 1881 until 
the date the lease was lost, the 12th of March, 
1890.” 80 

From this it is evident that when Elliott visited 
the islands in 1876 “on my own responsibility” he 
was actually employed by the Alaska Commercial 
Co., on whose vessel, the steamship St. Paul, he 
traveled. He was likewise so employed when the 
monograph was written, although he specifically 
denied the same (H. R. 2027, p. 36, above cited) 
and also while lobbying for the bill in 1890, under 
which he was appointed special agent and of which 
he boasted “in four weeks we had that act.” 81 

And 

The exposure of his connection with the 
commercial interests which he had previously 
denied, together with his statements of a 
scandalous nature affecting public men, most of 
whom were dead, not only resulted in his being 


Biographies E ♦ Elliott 



The cover of Henry Wood Elliott’s 1886 
book, Our Arctic Province, which pro¬ 
pelled him into national notoriety as a 
natural history expert on the Territory of 
Alaska. 



Self-portrait in ink, by Henry Wood 
Elliott, accompanying broadsheet of 
Elliott’s book Our Arctic Province. 
(Private collection.) 


237 








Pribilof Islands: The People 


thoroughly discredited by the committee, but disgusted and incensed the latter to such an 
extent that it prohibited further printing of the proceedings and practically suppressed the 
entire [record of the] hearings. (Fur Trade Review, March, 1907, pp. 190 and 192.) 82 

William T. Hornaday later wrote in his memoir about his experience with Elliott. 
Hornaday seemed to forgive Elliott for his unsavory behavior, highlighting his dedication 
to preserving the fur seals’ existence. 

In the spring of 1909, the writer [Hornaday] came broad awake to a compelling sense of his 
duty to “do something” to save the vanishing fur seals.... 

It was clear that nothing could be accomplished by more recriminations, more quarreling, 
or more fighting. But perhaps something good might be accomplished by outsiders who 
were friendly to all parties concerned! With his matchless fund of fur-seal knowledge and 
experience, Mr. Elliott would make a powerful advisor and ally, but for the sake of peace 
and progress, it would be cruelly necessary for him to remain in the background! The 
situation had become so bad that any change in it would be for the better. 

... Without a moment’s hesitation, Mr. Elliott cheerfully pledged himself to accept and 
abide by the harsh conditions that the hopeless situation demanded; and he loyally kept his 
word. 83 

Hornaday, who made certain that Elliott’s crusade to save the fur seal became a last¬ 
ing legacy, would also write of the blow to his own reputation for taking on the fur-seal 
conservation fight with Elliott: 

the cost to me in old friendships forever broken was great. Even today [1931] it is painful to 
contemplate. I have many ex-friends who never will forgive me for having started that fur- 
seal salvage campaign, nor for its having been successful. 84 

Others wrote: 

In 1911, Elliott’s dream of saving the Alaskan fur seal from extinction was realized when 
the four powers (Russia, Japan, Great Britain and the United States) agreed to the North 
Pacific Sealing Convention [The Fur-Seal Treaty]. The powers prohibited all pelagic sealing 
in the open ocean, including Bering Sea. Each signatory agreed to a system of mutually 
satisfactory compensation. A five-year land-killing suspension for the Pribilof herd was 
added by Congress due largely to Elliott’s efforts. 85 

Despite the 1911 Congressional investigation which cast a scathing light on Elliott, 
his persuasive manner enabled him to once again gain authority to investigate seal life on 
the Pribilofs in 1913. On June 20, 1913, the Committee on Expenditures, chaired by John 
H. Rothermel 

ordered, That Henry W. Elliott is hereby appointed as a duly qualified expert to gather 
certain information touching the conduct of public affairs on the seal islands of Alaska 
as the chairman of the committee shall require, and that Andrew F. Gallagher is hereby 
appointed as a duly qualified expert stenographer and notary to accompany Mr. Elliott and 
record the details of that information as it shall be developed under the instructions of the 
chairman. 86 

A. J. Gallagher, a stenographer for the committee, accompanied Elliott to take dicta¬ 
tion. The St. Paul Agent’s Log told something of their trip during the summer of 1913: 

At 9 30 a.m. Henry W. Elliott and A. J. Gallagher landed on the West side in the 
TAHOMA’s boat. Elliott, whose connection with the much-vexed “seal question,” is 
well known, comes under some sort of authority derived so far as I can gather from the 
Congressional Committee of Expenditures in the Department of Commerce to investigate 


238 





Biographies E ♦ Elliott 


seal life. Mr. Gallagher, a most pleasant gentleman, is a reporter for the Congressional 
committee and seems to be here for the purpose of taking notes as dictated by Mr. Elliott. 

No information as to their coming has been received by me from the Department, and as 
Mr. Elliott did not specifically state the cause and object of his mission, I must accept as a 
fact his coming here with proper authority. Mr. Elliott announced to me vehemently that 
it was his intention to ascertain the area occupied by the [breeding] seals at present as a 
means of determining hereafter their increase or the contrary; that, to use his expression, 
he will not tolerate the counting of pups hereafter by anyone, and that he who does count 
the pups will be made sorry for it. He stated that the question of increase or decrease 
of seals was the only important question to be considered, and that mere numbers, i.e. 
whether there were one hundred thousand or whether there were two hundred thousand 
in the herd was not important as compared with the general question of increase or 
decrease. 87 

Agent and Caretaker Walter Lembkey soon exposed, at least to himself, Elliott’s ruse. 

As a result of the talk this afternoon, Mr. Elliott showed me for the first time, this evening, a 
copy of his instructions. Mr. Gallagher stated to me that they were there under a resolution 
of the House, whereas, upon reading the instructions I find that no resolution of the House 
was passed authorizing their visit, but their instructions refer merely to a resolution of the 
Committee, their instructions being signed by Mr. Rothermel the chairman. They refer 
repeatedly to oral instructions not covered by the written ones. The whole idea I can gather 
from the attitude and speech of the two gentlemen is that they are wholly surprised and 
indignant over the proposition to associate with anyone in an investigation of seal life and 
that, they would rather omit entirely further investigation, or carry it on surreptitiously, 
than to submit to any joining of their work with others from the Department. I am forced 
to believe that Mr. Elliott’s endeavor is to establish a[n] ex parte case; that he is here not 
as a fair investigator but as a special attorney acting solely in the interests of clients—[the 
text from hereout until July 13, 1913, appears to have been redacted as the sentence ends 
without a period, and the last quarter of the log book page is uncharacteristically blank]. 88 

Lembkey’s Agent’s Log continued recounting anecdotes of Elliott and Gallagher’s ac¬ 
tivities and behavior on the islands until their July 30, 1913, departure aboard the Cutter 
Unalga. Agent Lembkey embarked with Elliott and neither man ever returned to the 
Pribilof Islands. Elliott returned to Washington, D.C., to file a lengthy report with nu¬ 
merous exhibits that became Document no. 1 in the House Committee on Expenditures 
in the Department of Commerce, Investigation of the Fur-Seal Industry of Alaska con¬ 
ducted on October 13, 1913, and January 17, 1914. However, Elliott’s investigation was 
clouded by the earlier findings against him during the Hearing before the Committee of 
Ways and Means January 25, 1907, and the House Hearings before the Committee on 
Expenditures in the Department of Commerce and Labor during 1911. 89 Consequently, 
Congress refused to pay Elliott’s expenses and compensation. The committee chairman, 
John H. Rothermel, apparently solely authorized Elliott and Gallagher’s 1913 investiga¬ 
tion and Rothermel, “narrowly escaped being expelled before the expiration of his term” 
for his complicity with Elliott. 90 

For the rest of his life Elliott remained unrelenting in his efforts to save the fur seal, 
but his reputation became so tarnished that his good intentions received little respect. 
William T. Hornaday succinctly dealt with Henry Wood Elliott’s legacy in his book Thirty 
Years War for Wild Life: Gains and Losses in the Thankless Task : 

By the year 2000 Mr. Elliott’s great-great-grandchildren may receive for him “the thanks of 
Congress!” But I doubt it! 91 


239 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


Mr. Hornaday’s doubts notwithstanding, in 2007 NOAA recognized Henry Wood 
Elliott’s contribution to the protection of the northern fur seal and the North Pacific Fur- 
Seal Treaty of 1911 as one of the ten most interesting and significant events in the agen¬ 
cy’s 200-year history. 92 


Emanoff, Mamant (1906-1972) 

Coffee Shop Entrepreneur, Leader of the Aleut Civil Rights Movement, St. Paul Island 
Genealogy 

Mamant Emanoff was born September 15, 1906, on St. Paul Island, Alaska, to Mary 
Emanoff. Mary had four other sons: Alexey, Joaniky, Maxim, and Peter. Mamant mar¬ 
ried Anna Misikin (b. February 9, 1910, St. Paul Island, Alaska). Mamant and Anna had 
two sons born on St. Paul Island: Karp was born October 24, 1927 and Gregory was born 
December 2, 1928. Mamant Emanoff died on St. Paul Island July 1972. 93 

Biographical Sketch 

Mamant Emanoff was one of the acknowledged leaders of the Pribilovians during their 
efforts to gain their inherent civil rights in the 1940s and 1950s. He was revered for his 
knowledge, intelligence, and leadership abilities. His portrait, along with those of four of 
his comrades, hangs in the St. Paul Island City Council chambers. 

Mamant Emanoff received authorization from the government to open a coffee shop, 
one of five Native businesses on St. Paul Island. 94 


Ennis, William EE (b. 1842) 

Lieutenant, U.S. Navy 

Adventurer-Signalman, Western Union Telegraph Expedition 
Supercargo on “Caldera”for Messrs. Parrott & Company, 1868-1869(?) 

Agent for Parrott & Company, St. George Island, 1868 

Genealogy 

The U.S. Census of 1860 showed William Ennis as being born in Washington, D.C., to 
Irish-born contractor Philip Ennis and his wife, Catherine. William married Susan D. 
Coates of Louisiana, the daughter of Moses Coates of San Francisco, on December 8, 
1868. 91 William and Susan Ennis had two children: Scott and Daisy. 96 

Biographical Sketch 

In 1866, William Ennis joined the Russian America Division's Arctic party of the Western 
Union Telegraph Expedition, led by Major Robert Kennicott. Using his U.S. Navy train¬ 
ing, he served the Expedition as a signalman. 97 Naturalist William H. Dali was on the 


240 








Biographies E ♦ Elliott - Ennis 


same expedition (see Dali’s biography). Ennis’ tour of duty took him to Sitka, where he 
was introduced to the Governor of Russian America and his wife, Prince and Madame 
Maksutov. 98 By 1870, Ennis had become a fur dealer in San Francisco. 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

William Ennis entered the employ of San Francisco trader Parrott & Company in 1868, 
after his return from the Western Union Telegraph Expedition. 99 He served aboard the 
schooner Caldera as the company’s supercargo (manager of a vessel’s cargo), and as agent 
on St. George Island in 1868. His experiences on St. George were covered in a memoir 
titled “Cruise of the Caldera.” 100 Excerpts are reproduced here courtesy of the California 
Historical Society. 


Cruise of the “Caldera” 

The objects of the owners of this vessel wish for the purpose of trading along the North 
western coast of our new territory “Alaska” and of taking such notes of that country and its 
resources as would enable the owners to determine whether by carrying on the fur trade 
extensively, money could be made in sufficiently large sums as to warrant the venture. 

For this purpose the “Caldera” a Schooner of one hundred and twenty three tons was 
purchased and fitted up as conveniently as possible and its command placed into the 
hands of one Capt. Kensil, but this person having resigned his position, the owners were 
compelled to seek other parties to carry out their intentions. After some delay and looking 
around, they were fortunate enough to secure the services of Captain C.P. Holcomb, a 
man eminently adapted for the command, who had long been in command of a whaling 
vessel among the ice & snows of an Artie [sic] clime, and whose success during his long 
experience as captain was ample proof that the right man had at last been found. The 
writer of this was employed as super cargo, trading & business agent for the owners and for 
this position he was indebted for the knowledge he possessed of the Northern Country, the 
habits and languages of the Russian and Esquimaux having been acquired by him while in 
the employ of the Russian Telegraph Company. 

The 20th day of March found our compliment [sic] of men complete and on Sunday the 
22nd we bid adieu to San Francisco and stood down the Bay with the following persons on 
board: C.P. Holcomb, Commander of vessel; Wm. H. Ennis, Supercargo & Agent; Geo. R. 
Adams, Trader; Osborn Howes Jr., Clerk; Tos. C. Welden, 1st mate; E. Huckins, 2nd mate; 
Wm. Commance, sailor; Wm. Athnidgo, sailor; Fred Peterson, sailor; John Monoque, sailor; 
Wm. Holley, cook. 


“St. George Island” 

After a short run we sighted the smoking volcano “Shilmidinsky” to the west of “Ounimak” 
and running through the “pass” with a good fresh breeze we entered Behring Sea and 
headed for the “Island” which we sighted April 23rd. The morning of the 24th anchored 
off the town and after dinner went on shore. Found the Russian Agent very gentlemanly 
and explained to him that it was my intention to build houses & establish sealing stations. 
Gained some valuable information from him regarding the time the seals came, their 
habits, customs. He informed us that 100,000 could be killed in a season. I shall be content 
however, if we secure, 10,000 for our trouble. April 25th landed our lumber & commenced 
the building of our house, found that we were short of timber necessarily making our 
quarters rather contracted. In the afternoon commenced to blow a fresh gale causing us 
to stop landing. As there is no harbor on the island, we are continually annoyed by gales 
of wind which cause us to slip our anchors & run out to sea, and when the gale moderated 
to run in & anchor. Another great difficulty we are obliged to contend against is the serf 


241 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


[sic] which rolls “mountains high”, making it an unpleasant as well as dangerous business 
to land goods. Friday May 1st. Schooner “Thos. Woodward” came in & anchored and 
finding she had men to land on the Island to carry on the fishing, thought it judicious to 
enter into an agreement to work the island jointly instead of opposing one another. Drew 
up a contract obliging each party to land $5000 worth of goods and at the end of the season 
to equally divide the skins, said contract to hold good for the period of three years. The 
"Woodward” having a large quantity of lumber on board, landed a sufficient number of 
boards & shingles to erect a large and commodious House. While engaged in this work the 
Steamer “Fideliter” belonging to “Hutchins Khole [sic] & Co” arrived and took possession 
of their houses & goods on the Island making themselves a formidable opposition to our 
parties. After much wrangling & quarrelling we compromised the matter by entering 
into a contract with them to monopolize the entire Island between us & maintain it by 
force should force be required. At last after much difficulty & worry, I managed to settle 
everything satisfactory and left as my agents on the Island Messrs Adams and Howes with 
definite instructions for their guidance. Before leaving the subject of St. George Island I 
must not forget to state that a terrific gale of wind sprang up while laying at anchor and we 
narrowly escaped shipwreck on the brakers! [sic] At this time I discovered that my goods 
and vessel were in danger of confiscation by the Government on account of not clearing 
properly for trading on the American shores of "Alaska.” This I was not aware of, not having 
seen any publicity of the order. 101 

Ennis’ account related to fur-trading activities on St. George Island in 1868. He appar¬ 
ently elected not to mention either Messrs. Parrott & Company or the year 1868, but he 
did refer to the schooner Caldera rather than to a fictional schooner christened Katie, as 
another writer about the journey had done. Osborne Howes Jr. (see Howes’ biography as 
well as paragraph three of the reproduced narrative below) was the author of an unsigned 
1872 New York Times article, “An Adventure in Behring Sea,” about his excursion to St. 
George Island in 1868 aboard the schooner Katie. A search of the Port of San Francisco 
records by the present authors verified that the Caldera, and not the Katie, entered the 
Port at the time in question, suggesting that Katie is a pseudonym for the Caldera in the 
New York Times piece. 

According to historian Harold Taggart, after returning from the Pribilof Islands and 
marrying Susan Coates, William Ennis soon set sail on an adventure to Norton Sound for 
Parrott & Co. Thereafter, William Ennis seems to have drifted from recorded history . 102 


Erskine, Melville Cox ( 1835 - 1909 ) 

Master Mariner, Alaska Commercial Company, 1868-1892+ 

Genealogy 

Melville Cox Erskine was born in Bristol, Maine, in October 1835 to Wilson Erskine and 
Elizabeth (Richards) Erskine. Melville Erskine married twice. Sarah J. Batchelder became 
his wife on April 28, 1856, but died the next year. Melville Erskine’s second wife was 
Mary A. McCarty. Melville and Mary were married on January 1, 1862, after Melville had 
moved to San Francisco in 1858. Melville and Mary Erskine’s children included William 
Wilson, Melville Cox Jr., and Richard Gird . 103 


242 




Biographies E ♦ Ennis - Notes 


Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Melville C. Erskine was one of the first American sealers to go to the Pribilof Islands. He 
continued to visit the Seal Islands each year for twenty-four years as an employee of the 
Alaska Commercial Company. He deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration before Notary 
Public Clement Bennett in San Francisco, California, on April 6, 1892. 

I am 55 years of age. I reside in San Francisco. I am a master mariner by occupation. I have 
been going to the Bering Sea twenty-four years. I went first to the seal islands in April 1868, 
and have been going there ever since, visiting the islands every year until 1890.1 have been 
cruising along the coast from here to the Aleutian Islands, and have had an opportunity 
of ascertaining the habits of the seals. A year ago last March I saw a herd of seals of from 
500 to 600 just above Cape Mendocino [California]. I have also often met large numbers 
scattered along the coast of Cape Flattery [Washington], generally from 10 to 20 miles 
offshore.... I have been for the past twenty-four years and am now employed by the Alaska 
Commercial Company, the former lessees of the seal islands. 104 


1 Rossiter Johnson and John Howard Brown, eds., The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of 
Notable Americans: Brief Biographies of Authors, Administrators, Clergymen, Commanders, Editors, 
Engineers, Jurists, Merchants, Officials, Philanthropists, Scientists, Statesmen and Others Who Are 
Making American History, vol. 3 (Boston: The Biographical Society, 1904), 416; Morten Sorensen’s 
Family Page, Ancestry.com; http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident (accessed Nov. 

1, 2005); “Senator Elkins Buried,” New York Times, Jan. 8, 1911, 15; and “Senator Elkins Dies At 
Capital,” New York Times, Jan. 5, 1911, 1. 

2 http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident (accessed Nov. 1, 2005). 

3 “James Gillespie Blaine,” New York Times, Jan. 28, 1893, 3. 

4 Webster’s Biographical Dictionary; A Dictionary of Names of Noteworthy Persons with 
Pronunciations and Concise Biographies, 1st ed. (Springfield, MA: G. and C. Merriam, 1943), 477. 

5 “James Gillespie Blaine,” New York Times, Jan. 28, 1893, 3. 

6 The term “close season” was used during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to mean 
the same as “closed season.” 

7 “Elkins’s Company Protests,” New York Times, June 20, 1891, 5; and Charles S. Campbell Jr., “The 
Anglo-American Crisis in the Bering Sea, 1890-1891, in Alaska and its History, ed. Morgan B. 
Sherwood (Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press), which presents an interesting account of the politics 
played by Elkins and his political associates during the transition from the Alaska Commercial 
Company to the North American Company. 

8 G Dallas Hanna, TJje Alaska Fur-Seal Islands, ed. John A. Lindsay, NOAA Tech. Memo. NOS ORR 
16 (2008), 36. 

9 “Club Begins Fight, Movement for Saving the Fur Seal Industry,” The Washington Star, Dec. 10, 1910, 
20. The article gave a revenue loss figure of “$2,247,544.” Assuming the gross revenue and expendi¬ 
ture items were correct, the revenue loss would have been $2,237,544. 

10 Robert L. Shalkop, Henry Wood Elliott 1846-1930: A Retrospective Exhibition (Anchorage: 
Anchorage Historical and Fine Arts Museum, 1982), 20, gave Alexandra’s age at the time of mar¬ 
riage as sixteen; he also gave her birth date as Mar. 13, 1858, which would have made her fourteen at 
the time of her marriage to Henry Elliott. Shalkop’s footnote stated “Information given here ... on 
Aleksandra’s family is taken from vital statistics recorded by the Russian Orthodox Church and de¬ 
posited in the Alaska Russian Church Archives, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. Elliott’s 
marriage is recorded in Vital Statistics, Unalaska, 1872, vol. 16, 26.” The St. Paul Island Agent’s Log 
recorded Elliott’s marriage on Sunday, July 21, 1871. 

11 The name “Narene” was spelled “Narine” in Margaret Manor Butler, The Lakewood Story (New 
York: Stratford House, 1949), 106. In all other records, such as the U.S. Census, the name is spelled 
“Narene.” 

12 U.S. Census, 1900-1930; Social Security Admin., SSDI; granddaughter Constance Elliott Schabitzer 


243 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


correspondence notes in Shalkop, Henry Wood Elliott, 15 and 20. 

13 Butler, The Lakewood Story, 106. 

14 Ibid., 106 mentioned Narene was married in the church on St. Paul Island where her parents had 
wed; it would have been circa 1928, inferred from the Mozee family information listed in the 
1929 U.S. Census, Nome, AK. At the time of his marriage to Narene Elliott, Benjamin B. Mozee 
(1886-1984) was a widow with three children: Bonnie Eloise (1917-1998), Jeanne Caroline 
(1919-1992), and Yvonne Harper (b. 1924) from his marriage to Jessie (Harper) Mozee, daughter 
of Alaska Yukon pioneer Arthur Harper and Jennie (Seentahna) Bosco Harper, who Benjamin had 
married in 1916, Tanana, Alaska. Narene and Benjamin Mozee had only one child, Elliott Mozee 
(b. July 1929, Nome, AI<). Elliott Mozee married Trudy Marie Brown July 5, 1952, at Albuquerque, 
NM. Widowed a second time, Benjamin Mozee married Margaret A. Stocton, Nov. 22, 1942, at 
New York, NY. 

Sources: “Alaska Marriages 1745-1950,” http://usgennet.org/usa/ak/state/marrs-h.html (accessed 
June 08, 2009); Arthur Harper family at RootsWeb’s World Connect Project: Clymer Connections, 
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&dbas (accessed June 07, 2009); Mozee 
and Stocton marriage, http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&refl (ac¬ 
cessed June 07, 2009); U.S. Census, 1920, Alaska Territory, Nulato, Fourth Judicial District, roll 
T625-2030, Enumeration District 104, 5B; U.S. Census, 1929, Nome Township, Second Judicial 
District, Cape Nome Recorders District, roll T626-2627, Enumeration District 2-1, 19B; Social 
Security Admin., SSDI, NM, 1956, http://search.ancestry.com (accessed June 08, 2009); “Obituary 
Bonnie Eloise Mozee Gelotte,” Anchorage Daily News, Mar. 26, 1998, B2; “Former Alaskan Dies 
in Nevada’,’ Daily Sitka Sentinel, June 12, 1992, 3; “Miss Brown Bride Today,” The Albuquerque 
Tribune, June 5, 1952, 4; and “Obituary Margaret Mozee,” Anchorage Daily News, Jan. 14, 1992, B3. 

15 “Woman Disappears on Great Lakes Ship,” New York Times, Aug.14, 1940; “Cruise Ship Maid 
Sought in Slaying,” Charleston Daily Mail, Charleston, WV, Aug. 16, 1940 (the news article sug¬ 
gested that Narene may have been slain over a large sum of money she carried with her); Ohio 
Division of Vital Statistics, Death Certificates and Index, December 20, 1908-December 31, 

1953; State Archives Series 3094, Ohio Historical Society; Ohio Dept, of Health Death Index, 

1940, p. 1280: Narene Elliott Mozee Death Certificate 47801. These authors did not learn whether 
Narene’s case was ever solved. 

16 Shalkop, Henry Wood Elliott, 11-2, and 20 nl2 and nl3—this source erred by stating the couple 
married at Unalaska. 

17 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, July 21, 1872, 126. 

18 Letter from H. W. Elliott to W. H. Dali, SIA, RU 7073, box 10 folder 10, 3. 

19 Elliott wrote in a July 22, 1872, letter to “My Dear Old Friend,” presumably William Dali, about 
Alexandra, “She is my teacher of no uncertain significance for the Russian language.” SIA, RU 
7073, box 10, folder 10. 

20 Briton Cooper Busch, Tlte War Against the Seals: A History of the North American Seal Fishery. 
(Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Univ. Press, 1985), 121. 

21 Letter from Henry W. Elliott to William H. Dali, Apr. 22, 1872, SIA, RU 7073, box 10, folder 10, 2. 

22 Butler, The Lakewood Story, 102. 

23 Shalkop, Henry Wood Elliott, 15. 

24 Butler, The Lakewood Story, 96. 

25 Ibid. 

26 Shalkop, Henry Wood Elliott, 12. 

27 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, July 21, 1872, 126. 

28 James Thomas Gay, "Henry W. Elliott: Crusading Conservationist,” Alaska Journal 3, no. 4, 216; 
and Shalkop, Henry Wood Elliott, 15. 

29 Butler, The Lakewood Story, 96. 

30 Ibid., 96-7; Lakewood Public Library local history files, biography, Mrs. Townsend’s Scrapbook, 
http://www.lkwdpl.org/history/5biographyA-F.htm (accessed Feb. 29, 2003). 

31 Elliott’s age at the time he began his position in the Smithsonian varies among authors, e.g. Gay, 
“Henry W. Elliott,” 211, stated he was fifteen, whereas Butler, who interviewed family members for 
The Lakewood Story, 97, suggested that he was sixteen because he didn’t begin sketching until that 
age, and as a reward for his artistry his father introduced him to prominent men in Washington, 
DC. 


244 



Biographies E ♦ Notes 


32 Shalkop, Henry Wood Elliott, 9. Morgan B. Sherwood, Exploration of Alaska 1865-1900 (New 
Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1965), 50, stated, “A Brooklyn woman wrote to the 
Smithsonian to inquire whether Elliott was entitled to the appellation ‘professor.’ Baird said no, 
but mentioned that Elliott had had ‘large experience’ in exploring the Northwest. Sherwood cited 
Baird to Mrs. Harriet M. Sutter, Nov. 20, 1878, SIA, stating “In fact, neither Dali nor Elliott was on 
the Smithsonian payroll.” 

33 U.S. Congress, House, Committee of Ways and Means, Alaska Commercial Company, 44th 
Cong., 1st sess., H. Rep. no. 623, June 3, 1876, 85. Elliott wrote ‘‘[I am] then as now, an associ¬ 
ate and collaborator of this establishment [Smithsonian]” {The Seal Islands of Alaska. Kingston, 
ON: Limestone Press, 1976 reprint of 1881 edition, 5). In his 1881 publication, Seal Islands of 
Alaska, Elliott wrote on page 5, “The writer, then as now, an associate and collaborator of the 
[Smithsonian] Institution 

34 U.S. Congress, House, “Notes of a Hearing Before the Committee on Ways and Means of the 
House of Representatives on the Question of Recommending an Investigation of the Alaska Fur- 
Seal Business,” 48th Cong., Mar. 28, 1884, 36, in U.S. Dept, of Commerce and Labor, Alaskan Seal 
Fisheries: Compilation of Documents and Other Printed Matter Relating Thereto. 1906, vol. 2. 

35 Sherwood, Exploration of Alaska 1865-1900, 50, cited Henry Elliott to Spencer Baird, Aug. 26, 
1881, SIA. U.S. Congress, House, “Alaska Commercial Company,” 44th Cong., 1st sess. H. Rep. 

623, 85. 

36 Sherwood, Exploration of Alaska 1865-1900, 17, cited Dali Diaries, Dec. 2, 1868, and May 17, 
1869, SIA. The authors found the material in RU 7073, William H. Dali Papers, box 7, folder 7. 

37 Sherwood, Exploration of Alaska, 46, cited SIA, Henry Elliott to Joseph Henry, Apr. 30, 1869. 

38 SIA, RU 7073, box 10, folder 10. 

39 Marlene Deahl Merrill, Seeing Yellowstone in 1871: Earliest Descriptions and Images from the Field 
(Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press), 8. Others, such as Shalkop, Henry Wood Elliott, 10, stated that 
Thomas Moran served as the Hayden Expedition’s "official artist.” 

40 Eugene Lee Sillman, “Yellowstone Lake as Seen by Artists,” in Yellowstone Lake, Hotbed of Chaos 
or Reservoir of Resilience, eds. Roger J. Anderson and Roger Harmon, Proceedings 6th Biennial 
Scientific Conference on the Great Yellowstone Ecosystem, Mammoth, Yellowstone National 
Park, Yellowstone Center for Resources and the George Wright Society, 242-55. 

41 Letter from Henry W. Elliott to William H. Dali, Apr. 22, 1872, SIA, RU 7073, box 10, folder 10, 
1-2. Elliott departed St. Paul Island for St. George Island on May 28, 1873, where “he spent the 
remainder of the summer” (U.S. Congress, House, Appendix A to Hearings Before the Committee 
on Expenditures in the Department of Commerce and Labor on House Resolution No. 73, To 
Investigate The Fur-Seal Industry of Alaska, 62nd Cong., 1st sess. [Washington, DC: GPO, 1911], 
1153). Elliott apparently departed in July 1873. In a letter to William Dali he stated: “The steamer 
has put in her appearance today for the last time this year and on her I am to go down with my 
wife and family.” Letter from H. W. Elliott to William Dali, July 31, 1873, SIA, RU 7073, box 10, 
folder 10, 1. 

42 Shalkop, Henry Wood Elliott, 5. 

43 Gay, “Henry W. Elliott,” Alaska Journal 3, no. 4, 216. 

44 Elliott’s artworks eventually totaled in the hundreds. The Carnegie Museum of Natural History 
acquired fifty of Elliott’s works. In 2008, Curator-in-Charge Dr. David R. Watters, Section of 
Anthropology, wrote in his unpublished “Extracts from documents concerning the Elliott water- 
colors housed in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania” how Elliott’s 
watercolors came into the Museum’s possession. The following excerpt was taken from "Monthly 
Reports of the Director [to the Museum Committee], in vol. 2, June 30, 1905-Oct. 17, 1910, and 
in vol. 4, June 29, 1917-June 27, 1922,” by Dr. William Jacob Holland, Director of the Carnegie 
Museum (as it was known at the time of writing), who extended courtesy to the authors to print. 

Report of August 31, 1907: 

I am in receipt of a letter from Mr. Henry W. Elliott in which he informs me that he has transferred 
his interest in the collection of fifty water color sketches of the seal herds of Alaska, now on deposit 
with us, to Mr. M. R. Hemler of Cleveland, Ohio, and requesting me to hold the same subject to his 
order, and in the event of the purchase of this collection by the Trustees of the Carnegie Institute 
that the proceeds of the sale be paid to him to the extent of Mr. Elliott’s indebtedness to Mr. 

Hemler. I am also in receipt of a letter from the United Banking & Savings Co. of Cleveland, Ohio, 


245 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


informing me of the assignment of Mr. Elliott’s interest in the drawings alluded to and stating that 
the indebtedness for which this assignment was made is evidenced by notes of Professor Elliott as 
follows: $1081.91 and interest from November 17, 1906; $399.16 and interest from August 20, 1907. 

This transaction relates to a matter concerning which I have already spoken to you several times 
privately. I think the Committee ought to look into this matter of the drawings, and it is possible 
that it would be advisable for us to purchase them if satisfactory arrangements could be made. I 
have made some inquiries quite recently of Mr. W. H. Dali of Washington, and of other gentlemen. 

They speak very highly of the drawings, but none of them expressed himself to me as inclined 
to recommend the purchase at the price which Mr. Elliott has demanded for them, to wit, five 
thousand dollars. Of course we all know that the seal herd has disappeared and in two or three years 
from now will be absolutely extinct, when these drawings, which represent the herd at the height of 
its most prosperous period of existence, will be of very great value and interest. 

More than ten years elapsed before the Carnegie Museum secured the collection, as suggested in 
the following letter from a Mr. Mahlon R. Hemler (b. Feb. 1845, PA; d. May 20, 1929, Cleveland, 
OH, U.S. Census, 1900, Cleveland), who was a grocer on Franklin Ave, Cleveland, OH, and a one¬ 
time neighbor of Mr. Elliott’s in the Cleveland, OH area: 

July 16, 1918 

I, M. R. Hemler state that I received these pictures as collateral for approximately $1500.00, owed 
me by W. [sic] W. Elliott, in A.D. 1907, and that I have received no interest on the debt for eleven 
years. I had hoped to get $2000.00, but will accept $1200.00, provided a payment of $500.00 is made 
in August, 1918, the balance within a year from date of first payment. 

45 Letter from H. W. Elliott to Spencer Baird, May 1872, SIA, RU 7002, box 19, folder 29, 1-4. 

46 The records examined are not clear on this assertion by Elliott that he was sent to participate in 
any “investigations.” Rather the record shows that he had his own agenda about the natural history 
of the islands, and not particularly the seals. 

47 In a letter to William H. Dali, Elliott explicitly stated he is expected to remain on the islands until 
Oct. 1873. Letter from Henry W. Elliott to William H. Dali, Apr. 22, 1872, SIA, RU 7073, box 10, 
folder 10, 1-2. Also, Elliott arrived on the islands in Apr. 1872 and he did not depart until Aug. 
1873. 

48 U.S. Congress, House, “Report from the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries of the 
House of Representatives,” in The Fur-Seal and Other Fisheries of Alaska: Investigation of the 
Fur-Seal and Other Fisheries of Alaska. 50th Cong., 2nd sess., H. Rep. no. 3883 (Washington, DC: 
GPO, 1889), 135; and U.S. Congress, Hous e, Appendix A, 1153. 

49 Lisa Marie Morris, “Keeper of the Seal: The Art of Henry Wood Elliott and the Salvation of the 
Alaska Fur Seals,” PhD diss. Univ. of Alaska, Fairbanks, 2001, 34. 

50 SIA, RU 7002, box 19, folder 30. 

51 Letter from Henry W. Elliott to William H. Dali, Apr. 22, 1872. SIA, RU 7073, box 10, folder 10, 2. 

52 Victor B. Scheffer, “They Stopped the Press on His Book,” Pacific Discovery, 30, no. 1 (1977): 27, 
clarified that Elliott’s book was actually printed in 1874 and never published, although Elliott 
submitted his report in 1873 as he claimed. 

53 Ibid., 28. 

54 In the paragraph previous to this quote from his report Elliott had written: “The only point upon 
which I would dwell with reference to the inhabitants of the Prybilov Islands is, that they are not 
Indians in our acceptation of the term, not any more so than are the lower classes who live in so 
much squalor and ignorance in all our great cities and industrial centers.” In his next paragraph, 
Elliott may actually have been referring back to “the lower classes,” in the previous paragraph, but 
it may not have read that way to the Treasury Secretary. 

55 Scheffer, They Stopped the Press on His Book, 27, cited a quote by Elliott: “[a] report of mine made 
upon the Pribylov islands in September, 1873, and ... printed by the Treasury Department during 
my absence in Alaska. Owing to causes of which I have necessarily no personal knowledge, only 
75 copies of this report were struck off.” 

56 In a letter from Treasury Secretary B. H. Bristow to Chairman, Committee on Territories, Senator 
P. W. Hitchcock, Bristow stated, “A limited number of a similar report by Mr. Elliott in 1873, 

was printed with illustrations but only one copy thereof remains within files of the Department.” 
NARA, Alaska File of the Office of the Secretary of the Treasury, 1868-1903, RG 22, microfilm 
M720, roll 3, Jan. 15, 1876. Scheffer, They Stopped the Press, 29, observed that a card in the Library 
of Congress’ Rare Book Section reads “127 copies printed.” Scheffer, 27, himself was one of the few 


246 




Biographies E ♦ Notes 


to acquire a copy through an antiquarian bookseller. Several copies are in the Special Collections 
of the University of Washington, Seattle, and other locations. 

57 Several of the illustrations in Elliott’s 1873 (printed 1874) monograph Report of the Prybilov 
Group, or Seal Islands, of Alaska can be seen in Shalkop, Henry Wood Elliott, 1982. 

58 A copy of Elliott’s cover letter appears on pages 3-4 of the Report on the Condition of Affairs. 

59 Henry Wood Elliott letter (3 pages) to William H. Dali, U.S. Coast Survey, San Francisco, Jan. 29, 
1874. 

60 Letter from Henry W. Elliott to William H. Dali, Apr. 22, 1872. SIA, RU 7073, box 10, folder 10. 

61 Several years ago, the authors found several printed copies of two versions of Elliott’s monograph 
at a Juneau, Alaska, antiquarian bookshop. The two soft-cover versions ( Report on the Seal Islands 
of Alaska [1880] and The History and Present Condition of the Fishery Industries: The Seal Islands 
of Alaska (1881) have caused some confusion over the years as to the number of Elliott’s published 
works. Version one is undated although it includes a transmittal letter from Elliott to the super¬ 
intendent of the Tenth Census, Francis A. Walker, with a date of Mar. 31, 1880. In this “1880” 
printing, the foldout maps of the two major Pribilof Islands are in monochrome and are included 
at the end of the book. Version two is dated 1881 and includes colored maps as frontispieces. The 
1881 version was also reprinted in 1882 as A Monograph of the Seal-Islands of Alaska, by Henry 
W. Elliott, with additions from the “Report on the Fishery Industries of the Tenth Census” (U.S. 
Commission of Fish and Fisheries, 176-page Special Bulletin). Limestone Press (1976) reprinted 
the 1881 version, but not as an exact copy of either the 1880 or 1881 versions in our posses¬ 
sion. For example, the foldout maps of the two islands are placed as front and back end-papers, 
respectively. Version two (1881) and the reprinted version (1976) have the same outer cover 
clearly marked with the publication date of 1881, and included within the title is Tenth Census of 
the United States/The History and Present Condition of the Fishery Industries/The Seal Islands of 
Alaska, by Henry W. Elliott; the reprinted version lacks the artistic bordering around the title. The 
second title pages of the 1881 and 1976 (reprint) versions both read “Section IX [Monograph A] 

A Monograph of the Pribylov Group, Or The Seal-Islands of Alaska by Henry W. Elliott.” All three 
versions have 176 pages of narrative. We presume the first version (1880) was a proof. 

62 The 1881 version of A Monograph of the Pribylov Group, or Seal Islands of Alaska (Kingston, ON: 
Limestone Press) was republished in 1976 (ISBN 0-919642-72-1). The second title page reads 
“Section IX [Monograph A], A Monograph of the Pribylov Group or the Seal-Islands of Alaska by 
Henry W. Elliott, with Twenty-Nine Plates, Two Maps, and Twelve Sketch-Maps of the Islands 
and the Rookeries by the Author.” 

63 The 1880 “Tenth Census” was prepared by Ivan Petroff, who at one time, according to Orth, 
Dictionary of Alaska Place Names, Geological Survey Paper 567 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1967), 
26, was employed to gather resources and translate Russian text for use in H. H. Bancroft’s 1886 
History of Alaska, 1730-1885. (San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft, 1886.) Orth (1079, under “Petroff”) 
also stated that a preliminary 86-page version of the 1880 census was published in 1881, but the 
final document was not published until 1884. 

64 Cf. Orth, Dictionary, 12; in his Selected Bibliography (1082) he cites the Tenth Census as “U. S. 
Bureau of the Census, 1884, Tenth Census of Alaska: see bibliography Petroff, 1884.” The Census 
Office became the Bureau of the Census in 1903. The complexity of the various republished titles 
and dates of Elliott’s government publications may have resulted in some confusion or errors. 

65 Henry Wood Elliott, Report of Henry W. Elliott on the Condition of the Fur-Seal Fisheries of 
Alaska, Together with all Maps and Illustrations accompanying said Report, 54th Cong., 1st sess., 
H. Doc. no. 175 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1896), 3. 

66 U.S. Department of the Treasury, Special Agents Division, Seal and Salmon Fisheries and General 
Resources of Alaska, 54th Cong., 1st sess., H. Doc. no. 175, vol. 3 (Washington: GPO, 1898), 
312-538. 

67 Several of the illustrations in the 1882 version had captions similar to those of the 1873 original, 
but the illustrations were not the same. For example, plates “unnumbered” (1873), IX (1882), and 
45 (1890), captioned “The North Shore of St. Paul’s Island,” all seemingly illustrated from the same 
perspective at North Rookery, are different artistic interpretations. 

68 Joel Asaph Allen (1838-1921) was one of America’s leading naturalists during the late 19th and 
early 20th centuries. Which of Allen’s papers Elliott was referring to is uncertain. 

69 Sherwood, Exploration of Alaska, 46, citing the SIA, May 1872. 


247 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


70 Letter from H. W. Elliott to Spencer F. Baird, May 1873, SIA, RU 7002, box 19, folder 29, 2. 

71 Ibid., 2-3. 

72 Letter from Spencer F. Baird to William Dali, Oct. 11, 1874, SIA, RU 7073, William H. Dali Papers, 
box 7, folder 7. 

73 Gay, Henry W. Elliott, 213. Though Elliott claimed great knowledge of the Territory of Alaska and 
was more knowledgeable than most in political circles, he was not well traveled in it. Once chal¬ 
lenged to answer the question of his expertise on the Territory he offered: “I may say at the outset, 
that while I concede for the sake of argument that Mr. Dali ‘has seen more of the country than 
any other individual,’ I am not willing to grant the plain inference that he has studied that which 
he has seen more intelligently or patiently than others, who may have seen less, but still enough 
to form a correct opinion.” Elliott, A Report on the Condition of Affairs in the Territory of Alaska 
(Washington, DC: GPO, 1875), 229. 

74 Gay, Henry W. Elliott, 211. 

75 Morris, Keeper of the Seal, provided a compilation of most, if not all, of Elliott’s publications. 

76 U.S. Congress, House, Appendix A, 1154. 

77 Elliott’s calculation of the 1872-73 seal herd put the population over 4.7 million. This estimate 
proved to be a gross miscalculation, as later investigators placed it closer to 2.5 million. In 1890 
Elliott argued that the precipitous decline of the seal herd was due to land killing and not to pe¬ 
lagic sealing—again a gross error. His arguments that overdriving male seals “so injured the testes 
of these animals as to make them impotent” proved wrong. The government’s case against Elliott 
is presented in U.S. Congress, House, Appendix A, 1153-62. Also see Victor B. Scheffer, Clifford 
H. Fiscus, and Ethel I. Todd, History of Scientific Study and Management of the Alaskan Fur Seal, 
Callorhinus ursinus, 1786-1964, NOAA Tech., Rep. NMFS SSRF-780, (Washington, DC: GPO, 
1984) for a historical review of the seal herd size. 

78 “Fur Seals of Alaska.” Hearing before Committee of Ways and Means, 58th Cong., 2nd sess., Mar. 

9, 1904 (Washington, DC: GPO), 13; and U.S. Congress, House, Appendix A, 1154. In 1890, the 
Smithsonian Institution included in its annual report, “Report of S. P. Langley, Secretary of the 
Smithsonian Institution, for the Year Ending June 30, 1890,” the following statement: "Mr. Henry 
W. Elliott, formerly of the Alaska Commercial Company, [emphasis added] is visiting the Seal 
Islands of Alaska on business connected with the United States Government, and hopes to be 
able to secure some fine specimens of walrus, fur-seal, fishes and other zoological material.” U.S. 
Congress, House, 51st Cong., 2nd sess., Misc. Rep. 129-1, 33. 

79 The version seen by the authors of the cited “H.R. 2027, 48th Cong., 1st sess.,” has only 2 pages 
and not 36 pages as the quote suggests. 

80 U.S. Congress, House, Appendix A, 1154. 

81 Ibid., 2-3. 

82 Ibid., 1154. The inflammatory list of complaints against Elliott spans pages 1153-62 in the cited 
document. Before the reader chooses between condemnation or praise of Henry Wood Elliott, 
one is encouraged to study the man’s greater record and contributions. The Fur Trade Review, 
founded in 1873, was published monthly in New York. 

83 William T. Hornaday, Thirty Years War for Wildlife: Gains and Losses in the Thankless Task, 
Congressional Edition (Stamford, CT: Gillespie Bros., 1931), 174. 

84 Hornaday, Tlurty Years War, 181. 

85 Gay, Henry W. Elliott, 216. 

86 U.S. Congress, House, Hearings Before the Committee on Expenditures in the Department 
of Commerce: Investigation of the Fur-Seal Industry of Alaska, 63rd Cong., 2nd sess., no. 1 
(Washington, DC: GPO, 1914), 25. 

87 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, July 9, 1913. Agent P. R. E. Hatton made log entries after Agent Walter 
Lembkey’s departure. 

88 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, July 12, 1913. 

89 U.S. Congress, House, Appendix A, 1153-62. 

90 Scheffer et al., History of Scientific Study and Management, 21. 

91 Hornaday, Thirty Years War, 181. 

92 http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/events/fursealtreaty/welcome.html (accessed Dec. 23, 2007.) 

93 Betty A. Lindsay and John A. Lindsay, Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Genealogy and Census, NOAA 
Tech. Memo. NOS ORR 18 (2009), 52, 482, 504, and 620. 


248 




Biographies E ♦ Notes 


94 Biographical sketch provided by Larry Merculieff in an email to John Lindsay, Jan. 13, 2007. 

95 Harold F. Taggart, “Journal of William H. Ennis. Member, Russian-American Telegraph Exploring 
Expedition.,” pt. 2, 167, provided Ennis’ marriage date. 

96 Ibid., 12, mentioned Ennis’ son Scott, who became a Masonic leader in California. 

97 Ibid., 3. 

98 Ibid., 148 and 167. 

99 William H. Ennis journals and letters [1865-1869], MS 662, courtesy of the California Historical 
Society. Ennis’ original handwritten manuscript, “Cruise of the Caldera,” is fourteen pages in 
length. 

100 The Caldera was owned by John Parrott and Captain R. H. Waterman of San Francisco; Taggart, 
"Sealing on St. George Island, 1868,” The Pacific Historical Review, 28, no. 4 (1959), 354. 

101 William H. Ennis journals and letters [1865-1869], MS 662, courtesy of the California Historical 
Society. Ennis’ original handwritten manuscript, “Cruise of the Caldera,” is fourteen pages in 
length. 

102 Taggart, “Journal of William H. Ennis,” pt. 2, 148 and 167. 

103 “The Erskine Family of Bristol, Me.,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register 1847- 
1924, 74 (1920), 91. 

104 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, convened at 
Paris under the Treaty between the United States of America and Great Britain, concluded 
at Washington February 29, 1892, for the determination of questions between the two govern¬ 
ments concerning the jurisdictional rights of the United States in the waters of Bering Sea, vol. 3, 
(Washington, DC: GPO, 1895), 421-3. 



y 


First Herdsmen were John Fratis and 
Neil Oustigof “Oliver thought John 
Fratis and Neil Oustigof were better 
qualified than most of the other 
boys to make efficient herders, and I 
therefore called a meeting today and 
discussed the advisability of these two 
becoming apprentices under Oliver 
[Angoolok, an Eskimo herder 25 years 
old] to learn the reindeer business . 

.. 1 fixed a monthly salary of $2.50, 
each for these positions, and placed 
John and Neil on the regular pay¬ 
roll’.’ (NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, 
Anchorage. James Judge, Assistant 
Agent, St. Paul Island Agent Log, 
November 6, 1911. RG 22-95-ADMC- 
161) 


249 










Jhe Pover nment House. 

Residence oj the Treasury Agents, St. Rant's Island—Ruilt November 10, 187:. 
(A similar house is on Si. George .) 


The Government House. Residence of the Treasury Agents, St. Paul’s Island—Built 
November 10, 1872. Henry Wood Elliott, Report on the Prybilov Group, or Seal Islands of 
Alaska, 1873. 



^IRDS-EYE VIEW OF yj ALRUS j SL AND. 

A. Bluffs oca/pied by the gulls ( Rissa), cormorants (Graculus), and arries ( Uria), in nesting from yunc to September . 

B. Belt oj rocks exclusively occupied by the arrie ( Uria arra) in incubating. 

C. Area of grassy rocky flat occupied by the great white gull (Larus glaucus) for nesting. 

D. Boulders and shingle in which the sea-ptrrots and “ c hooch-kies" conceal their eggs. 


Bird’s Eye View of Walrus Island. Henry Wood Elliott, Report on the Prybilov Group, or 
Seal Islands of Alaska, 1873. 


250 












F 


Falconer, Samuel (1831-1915) 

Deputy Collector of Customs, Territory of Alaska, September 1868-September 1869 
Hutchinson & Kohl employee, Purser on their Schooner Constantine, September 1869- 
September 1870 

Assistant Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. George Island, September 10, 
1876-October 1876 


An expanded genealogy and biographical sketch of Samuel Falconer is presented in the 
“First Three Managers” section of this volume. 


Fassett, FIenry “FIarry” Clifford (1870-1953) 

Agent and Caretaker, Department of Commerce, St. Paul Island, 1914-1918 
Genealogy 

Henry Clifford Fassett was popularly known as “Harry.” Henry Fassett was born May 
9, 1870, to Harris Harding Fassett and Emma Louise (Neal) Fassett at Pacheco, Contra 
Costa County, California. The Fassett family was descended from Captain John Fassett 
(1743-1803), one of Ethan Allen’s Green Mountain Boys in Vermont, and Harry Fassett 
(1794-1872), one of the first physicians in Johnstown, Licking County, Ohio. Harry C. 
Fassett married Myra Beck (1884-1948) of Mississippi in 1918 while he was on leave 
from the Pribilof Islands; they had no children. Harry Fassett died December 9, 1953. 1 


251 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


Biographical Sketch 

In 1854, Harris Harding Fassett left Ohio for the 
gold fields of California to join his brother and 
sister, Chitt and Ann. The Fassett family became 
shopkeepers in Pacheco, and eventually in San 
Francisco. 2 In 1889, Harris’ son, Harry Clifford 
Fassett, went to work for Huntington Hopkins 
and Company of San Francisco, before signing on 
at age nineteen as clerk stenographer on the U.S. 
Fish Commission’s steamer Albatross. As stenog¬ 
rapher, Fassett kept the vessel’s scientific records, 
which he did “until the close of its Philippine 
Expedition in 1910. He took part in almost con¬ 
tinuous investigations, including expeditions to 
Hawaii, Panama, the South Seas (1899), Japan, 
and Alaska (1897) ” 3 The 1900 U.S. Census listed 
him as clerk on the Albatross, off the coast of 
Japan. Geographer Donald Orth credited Fassett 
with studies aboard the Albatross in southeast 
Alaska during 1900-1901. 4 Orth further credited 
Fassett with drafting several maps of the Alaskan coast, and with two Alaska geographical 
names, Fassett Glacier and Fassett Point. Sharon Landwehr of the California Academy of 
Sciences summarized Harry Fassett’s science career: 

A resident of San Francisco since 1934 and a member of the California Academy of 
Sciences since 1945, Harry Fassett was particularly interested in the Academy’s Library and 
donated all of his books over a period of years, along with extensive Reports and Bulletins 
of the U.S. Fish Commission, Department of Commerce, Department of Agriculture, Coast 
Geodetic Survey and more. At the time of his death on December 9, 1953, in San Francisco, 

Fassett was the last surviving member of the team that made the steamer Albatross famous 
as an oceanographic institution. 5 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Harry Fassett arrived at St. Paul Island during the spring of 1914, as agent and care¬ 
taker. He held that position until May 21, 1919, when he departed St. Paul on the steamer 
Saturn. After a temporary leave beginning in December 1917, Harry returned on May 8, 
1918, with his wife, Myra B. Fassett, who was employed as a temporary assistant on the 
island that year. 6 

One of the most significant changes during Harry Fassett’s tenure on the Pribilof 
Islands was the standardization of spellings of surnames and given names among the 
Native population. The spellings administered by Fassett are still being used today. 7 

Notwithstanding the documented fact that name spellings were standardized in 
1916, a legend persists today (2008) that the government and/or the mail carrier (Reeve 
Aleutian Airways) modified the surnames of families on the islands to improve mail ser¬ 
vice. For example, two individuals with the same given and family name, such as John 



Harry Clifford Fassett. (Photo: Carl 
Hoverson. NOAA, NMML Library, no. 
459.) 


252 





















Biographies F ♦ Fassett - Fish 


Merculieff, at times resided on each island. To improve mail delivery, either the post 
office or the mail carrier modified the surname of the entire “Merculieff” family to end 
in a single f (Merculief) on one island while retaining the “ff” on the other island. If 
this legendary modification in spelling did occur, the authors did not find any supporting 
documentation. 8 


Fish, Charles Pattison (1842-1879) 

Meteorologist, U.S. Army Signal Corps, Weather Service, St. Paul Island, 1872-1876 
Genealogy 

Charles Pattison Fish was born September 11, 1842, in Michigan, to physician David 
Dickinson (Dixon) Fish (1814-1886) and Elizabeth (Pattison) Fish. Charles Fish had 
one brother, Everett W. Fish, and four sisters: Francis E., Ella S., Anna E., and Harriet B. 
Fish. Charles married January 15, 1871, in the London district of Marylebone, Middlesex 
County, England, to Emily Eleanor Herbert Clarke, daughter of Robert Herbert Clarke. 
Emily was born circa 1850, in St. Margaret Parish, Kings Lynn Borough, Norfolk County, 
England. Emily Fish died in Washington, D.C., April 20,1917. Charles Fish died September 
26, 1879, at New York City. 9 

Biographical Sketch 

In his youth, Charles and his brother, Everett W. Fish, lived with their grandparents Dr. 
Samuel Warren Pattison and Phoebe (Atwood) Pattison in Ypsilanti, Washtenaw County, 
Michigan. Dr. Pattison was one of the early physicians to practice in Michigan, begin¬ 
ning in 1836 at Fenton and Owosso for thirty-six years, followed by thirty-one years in 
Ypsilanti, where he died October 23, 1881, at the age of eighty-four. 10 The grandfather’s 
choice of profession influenced Fish’s father, David, as well as his brother, Everett, who 
after studying at the University of Michigan became a professor of medicine, as well as a 
journalist. Charles did not follow the family tradition of practicing medicine but rather 
followed a military career in the U.S. Army. At the age of eighteen, he enlisted as a private 
with the Michigan troops of St. Clair County. In the Civil War he served in Company H, 
Michigan 3rd Cavalry Regiment. He was promoted to sergeant and had served his last 
two years as hospital steward when he mustered out in 1866 at San Antonio, Texas. 11 

After the war, Fish participated in commercial ventures in the south and at west¬ 
ern forts. These endeavors eventually brought him to London, England, where he met 
and married his wife, Emily. Charles and Emily Fish resided in Battersea, Wandsworth 
District, County Surrey, England, where Fish was listed as an American merchant in the 
1871 census. Charles and Emily arrived at New York from London on November 15,1871. 
On February 8, 1872, Fish re-entered military service as a sergeant in order to participate 
in the newly formed weather unit within the U.S. Army Signal Service. 12 Fish served five 
years on the Pribilof Islands before resigning from military service with an honorable dis¬ 
charge on September 12, 1876. He turned his attention to writing and was identified as a 


253 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


New York reporter upon his death in 1879. On careful observation one can see that the 
copy of the marriage certificate submitted by Emily Fish in her 1891 application for Civil 
War pension benefits had been altered to read 1873 as the year of marriage, rather than 
the year 1871 as recorded in the England Marriage Register of that year. The numeral one 
(1) is visible behind the smudged numeral three (3) in two places where it appears on the 
certificate. In her declaration for widow’s pension application, Emily entered 1873 as the 
year of marriage. The question arises as to the reason for tampering with the submitted 
document. Why was it so important to change the year of their marriage and run the risk 
of criminal prosecution? We assume the answer lies in Fish’s 1872 application for service 
into the Signal Corps’ Weather Service training program. At that time during the infancy 
of the program, “only unmarried men between the ages of twenty-one and forty were 
eligible.” 13 When Fish re-enlisted in the Army on February 8, 1872, he listed himself as a 
single man in order to meet that requirement. 14 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

On June 21, 1860, President James Buchanan created the U.S. Army Signal Corps with his 
signing of the Army appropriations bill for fiscal year 1861. 15 During its formative years 
the U.S. Army Signal Corps was often called the Signal Service. 16 

Charles Fish arrived at St. Paul Island on August 14, 1872, as a member of the U.S. 
Army Signal Service. He was the first to establish a meteorological station on the Pribilof 
Islands. Emily Fish accompanied her husband to St. Paul Island and served as a school 
teacher. 17 

Fish was required to submit weekly reports of the daily meteorological records to the 
Office of the Chief Signal Officer. Focation was noted as latitude 57° T 9" N, longitude 
170° 17' 52" W. At 9 a.m. each day, he recorded the wind direction and velocity, cloudi¬ 
ness, weather condition, ocean swell, thermometer reading, barometer reading, snow 
or rain, and any significant remarks. The meteorological information he obtained was 
passed daily to the government agents on St. Paul; they in turn recorded it as the first item 
in the Agent’s Log. In Henry W. Elliott’s printed but unpublished 1873 report (see Elliott 
biography) there is a tribute to Charles Fish’s meteorological work on St. Paul Island. 
(Interestingly, Fish would later not be so kind to Elliott.) 

The Climatology of the Prybilov Islands 

Mr. Chas. P. Fish has made an exceedingly exhaustive and full report to the Chief Signal- 
Officer of the Army, at Washington, and which will be published soon. It is so complete 
that I shall refer all to it who may wish to watch the weather closely through a year, or 
years, on the Seal Islands, and simply note here that the winter of 1872-73 was one of 
great severity, according to the natives, much more so than usual, it being generally very 
much warmer; but, cold as it was, the lowest marking by the thermometer was 12° below 
zero, and that for a few hours only during one day in February, while the mean of the 
month was but 18° above. The coldest month, March, gave a mean of 12° above, while the 
usual winters have a mean of only 22° or 26°; but the high north winds, blowing more than 
three-fourths of the time, make all out-door exercise impracticable; for instance, one day in 
March, 1873, it blew at the rate of eighty-eight miles per hour with as low a temperature as 
minus 4°! With a wind traveling only twenty-four or twenty-five miles an hour, at a much 


254 






Biographies F ♦ Fish 


higher temperature, as at 15° or 16° above, it is necessary to be most thoroughly wrapped 
up to guard against freezing, if any journey is to be made over the Islands. 

There are but two seasons, winter and summer. To the former belong November, 

December, January, February, March, and April, with a mean of 20°to 28°, while the 
transition to summer is but a slight elevation in temperature, only 15° to 20°, and of the 
summer months, July is the warmest, with a mean of 48° or 50°. 

It is astonishing how rapidly snow melts here at a single degree above freezing, and after 
several consecutive days at 34° and 36°, grass begins to grow, even if it be under melting 
drifts and the frost is many feet deep in the ground. The report of Mr. C.P. Fish, Signal 
Service, United States Army, cannot fail to be of great interest to meteorologists who 
will find subjects for much thought and reflection in its elaborate details; and with the 
permission of the Chief Signal Officer, I compiled the following table from the reports of 
his office, showing the range of barometer, thermometer, wind, cloudiness, &c., during a 
severe winter on St. Paul’s [sic] Island. 18 

Charles Fish resigned from the Signal Service in September 1876 and left St. Paul 
Island (see Edward Gill biography—Gill replaced Fish in 1876). Several months after 
Fish returned to Washington, D.C., he submitted a fourteen-page letter to Secretary 
of the Treasury Lot M. Morrill to introduce the one-hundred-page Report of General 
Government Charges on past and present management on the Fur Seal Islands, containing 
suggestions as to the rectification of all and thereon existing. No specifications appended 
or enclosed although at hand. 1 " The report was full of accusations aimed at Agent Bryant, 
Agent Falconer, the Alaska Commercial Company (ACC) agents, and Special Agent 
Henry W. Elliott. Fish objected to how the seal industry was being managed, objected to 
statements within the agents’ yearly reports that he considered false, and wrote of many 
reasons why he thought new management was needed. He wanted to see a permanent 
meteorological observatory on St. Paul Island with Fish as manager. The subject of educa¬ 
tion of the Aleuts was mentioned often within the report and the letter. Where his wife 
Emily had been the teacher on St. Paul Island, he felt her progress with teaching the chil¬ 
dren to read, write, and speak English was not emphasized enough by both the company 
and government agents as an important achievement. The Fish letter and report of com¬ 
plaints did not result in any special congressional committee investigation or changes in 
management or administration. 

President Rutherford B. Hayes took office March 5, 1877, and John Sherman was 
appointed as the new Secretary of the Treasury. In vain attempts to return to St. Paul 
Island, Fish wrote more letters to the Secretary of the Treasury both to chastise the ACC 
and to gain favor for an appointment as ‘weatherman’ of the Pribilof Islands. The first 
letter of March 11,1877, addressed invoices issued by the ACC. The letter included a long 
list of items purchased by Fish, what Fish was charged, and what Fish thought the items 
were worth. Fish also included a general statement outlining his work of the day on St. 
Paul Island: “practical predictions of weather including direction of wind velocity of usual 
sunshine and cloudiness, predictions of rain or snow and temperature with 93%-98% 
verification each prediction.” 21 

On August 13, 1877, Fish wrote a more direct appeal for his appointment and return 
to the Seal Islands: 


255 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


Apr. 

29.769 

30.35 

29 

1.35 

0.73 

0.03 

0.242 

23° .9 

35° 

o 

CO 

32° 

24° 

o 

CO 

27° .9 

19°.4 

to 

oo 

84.29 

100 

63 

Z 

18,607 

620.2 

25.84 

53 

73.6 

IN 

N 

0.5 

IN 

N 

26 

26 

Mar. 

29.768 

30.31 

S06Z: 

1.26 

990 

SO’O 

0.219 

NO 

o 

CN 

f“H 

35° 

o 

IN 

t/5 

3 

c 

g 

42° 

o 

o 

CN 

o 

co 

r-H 

i-H 

7° .4 

ON 

00 

oo 

100 

46 

z 

14,512 

CO 

NO 

19.5 

co 

00 

68 

1.21 

0.38 

1.21 

LZ 

27 

Feb. 

29.507 

30.51 

28.26 

2.25 

0.95 

900 

0.421 

no 

co 

34° 

o 

CN 

t-H 

t/3 

3 

C 

£ 

46° 

28° 

o 

CO 

22° .6 

r-H 

o 

LO 

r-H 

LO 

o 

in 

CN 

no 

co 

100 

49 

z 

16,646 

594.3 

CO 

CN 

CN 

00 

74.9 

5.78 

1.07 

N 

oo 

27 

25 

Jan. 

29.953 

30.5 

29.32 

CO 

i-H 

0.58 

CO 

O 

O 

0.194 

n- 

o 

LO 

»-H 

34° 

minusir 

45° 

22° 

o 

o 

ON 

o 

oo 

r-H 

ON 

o 

*-H 

r-H 

o 

o 

n 

85.7 

100 

53 

E.N.E. 

17,903 

577.5 

24.1 

43 

62.8 

960 

0.39 

0.83 

i—H 

CN 

20 

Dec. 

29.488 

30.04 

28.05 

1.99 

80 

0.03 

0.249 

26° .6 

37° 


33° 

o 

r-H 

i-H 

29° .1 

24° 

LO 

00 

IN 

oo 

100 

70 

Z 

16,644 

530.5 

22.1 

53 

00 

2.99 

0.42 

2.38 

27 

24 

Nov. 

29.458 

30.23 

28.62 

1.61 

n- 

CO 

o 

900 

0.339 

CO 

o 

CO 

41° 

23° 

o 

00 

12° 

o 

36° .2 

LO 

i—H 

CO 

n 

86.6 

100 

09 

C/D 

14,539 

NO 

00 

20.2 

74 

78.9 

2.38 

0.31 

0.82 

ZZ 

N 

Oct. 

29.512 

30.04 

28.51 

1.53 

0.97 

o 

d 

0.293 

36° .0 

45° 

o 

CN 

CN 

23° 

o 

o 

38° .7 

33° .3 

LO 

83.9 

100 

65 

z 

11,872 

383 

NO 

42 

00 

3.08 

0.58 

0.91 

29 

LO 

rH 

Sept. 

29.773 

30.46 

28.87 

1.59 

0.97 

0.03 

0.259 

44° .2 

o 

CN 

LO 

33° 

On 

i—H 

o 

o 

00 

NO 

oc 

q 

o 

LO 

85.6 

100 

56 

z 

9,138 

304.6 

12.7 

33 

92 

2.89 

LTD 

00 

o 

0.2 

30 


Month of record 

Mean of barometer, corrected ... 

Maximum of barometer, corrected ... 

Minimum of barometer, corrected ... 

Monthly range of barometer, corrected ... 

Greatest daily range of barometer, corrected ... 

Least daily range of barometer, corrected . .. 

Mean daily range of barometer, corrected . .. 

Mean of exposed thermometer ... 

Maximum of exposed thermometer ... 

Minimum of exposed thermometer ... 

Monthly range of exposed thermometer ... 

Greatest daily range of exposed thermometer ... 

Least daily range of exposed thermometer ... 

Mean of maxima of exposed thermometer ... 

Mean of minima of exposed thermometer ... 

Mean daily range of exposed thermometer ... 

Mean relative humidity ... 

Maximum relative humidity ... 

Minimum relative humidity ... 

Prevailing wind ... 

Number of miles traveled by wind ... 

Mean daily velocity of wind . .. 

Mean hourly velocity of wind ... 

Maximum hourly velocity of wind . .. 

Proportion of cloudiness ... 

Amount of rain-fall, in inches ... 

Greatest daily amount of rain-fall... 

Amount of melted hail and snow, (included in rain-fall) ... 

Number of days on which precipitation occurred ... 

Number of days on which hail or snow fell... 


0) 

5^ 


4-H 


o 

•a o 

£ ^ 

oo 

S § 
•SPcq 

CD 4^ 
■in 

<s h 

■*j (O 

CO V - 1 

■R5 « 
<D <4i 
.•« ^<0 

^j= 

■2 H 

tR CQ 

R -o 
O 
t/3 


s 

<§! 

■*~> 

r 


to Q 
^ CO 
S'. 

« o' 
-^! »>^ 

Zr « 

§ ^3 

£ ^ 

°^ 

<u 77 

-r 2 

^ S 

"f bb 

0> QJ 

IS 

00 S 
K 
00 


cs 

42 

x. 

o 


s*. 

R,i 

a < 

R.s 
00 <■ 
: 

^ r 

O C 
-R 

s I 

<u s 
*5 i 

S*' 5 

CO 1 


o 

N, 

to 

-R 

+j 


^ § 

^2 
■w 72 
o R 
$S R 


to Co 
-5> vl 
R O' 




256 


and Agriculture, compiled by Henry W. Elliott . 19 













































Biographies F ♦ Fish - Fowler 


I have long had in contemplation the establishment of an independent Meteorological 
winter Observatory on the Seal Islands, and if appointed to an agency thereon, or, what is 
far more necessary, a general commissionship there, for, I know, from the out come of the 
past, that the results will justify my selection. At the risk of undue self assertion, I cannot 
but beg you to consider that I know more of Alaska, including the Fur Seal Islands whereon 
is concentrated the principal of Alaskan wealth, than any other American visitor. I have 
paid especial attention to its interesting history and present needs. Indeed concerning 
all its present availabilities and future claims I can at any time, if ordered, fully report 
to the proper governmental center. I have arranged a topographical system for charting 
annually the seal hauling grounds; although naturally opposed with violence by the 
Alaska Commercial Co., I know that it can be carried into successful operation. I am fully 
convinced that some energy for the preservation of our valuable Alaskan interests ought 
to be displayed, contrasting though it may with the corruption of the past. With a final 
statement that Mrs. Fish taught the children of St. Paul Island to read, write and speak the 
English language. 22 

Charles Pattison Fish never returned to the Pribilof Islands. 


Fletcher, Herbert V. 

Blacksmith and Mechanic, Alaska Commercial Company, St. Paul Island, 1882-1884 
Fur-Seal Arbitration 

Herbert V. Fletcher provided the following deposition for the Tribunal of Arbitration 
before Notary Public William H. Du Bois at Randolph, Vermont, on June 18, 1892: 

I am a citizen of Randolph, VT., where I have had my home nearly all my life. I am by trade 
a machinist and blacksmith and by occupation a farmer. In 1882 I went to St. Paul Island 
in the service of the Alaska Commercial Company, as their chief mechanic, and remained 
there two years and four months, including the sealing seasons of 1882, 1883, and 1884. 

I was employed a considerable portion of the time in the annual seal killing, and at other 
times my work took me frequently to the various parts of the island, so that in the course 
of my stay there I became, as all do who live there a year or more, very familiar with 
everything pertaining to the seals. 23 


Fowler, Colman Lowell (b. 1846 ) 

Assistant Agent, Alaska Commercial Company, 1879-1890 
Agent, North American Commercial Company, 1890-1892 

Genealogy 

Lowell Colman Fowler was born in Massachusetts to Benjamin Fowler and Sophia 
Cowdrey (Stevens) Fowler. Colman Lowell Fowler was the brother of Hubert Green 
Fowler (see Hubert Fowler biography). 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Lowell Colman Fowler provided the following information during two depositions for 
the Tribunal of Arbitration, both on St. Paul Island. The first took place on November 


257 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


24, 1891, before First Lieutenant Frank H. Newcomer, USRM, and the second on June 8, 
1892, before Treasury Agent-in-Charge William H. Williams. 

I am 46 years of age, and was born at Stoneham, Mass. I have been a resident of the Pribilof 
Islands most of the time since 1879, a resident of the seal islands for the past ten years; 
formerly assistant agent of the Alaska Commercial Com., now agent of the North American 
[Commercial] Company. I have had eight years’ experience on the sealing fields of St. Paul 
and St. George islands, and I have a practical knowledge of the habits of the fur-seal while 
on the islands, and of the methods used in taking and preparing the skins for shipment. 24 


Fowler, Hubert Green (b. 1845 ) 

Assistant Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. Paul Island, 1884-1885 
Genealogy 

Hubert Green Fowler was born in November 1845, in Stoneham, Massachusetts, to 
Benjamin Fowler and Sophia Cowdrey (Stevens) Fowler. Colman Lowell Fowler was his 
brother. 25 

Biographical Sketch 

The U.S. Census for 1880, before Hubert Fowler’s appointment to St. Paul Island, noted 
that he was a school principal in Norwich, Connecticut. He later settled as a farmer in 
Mona, Richmond County, Montana, where he was still living in 1920. 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Agent George R. Tingle’s 1885 annual report stated that Hubert Fowler was “removed,” 
and the report suggested an ominous circumstance. 26 Around the same period (April 
1885), St. Paul Agent Henry Glidden expressed interest in the outcome of the presidential 
elections. 27 Then on May 29, 1885, Glidden entered into the Agent’s Log that he himself 
was being replaced because of “a change in the politics of the national administration,” 
i.e., Benjamin Harrison had defeated President Grover Cleveland. The records examined 
were not clear on this point, but it’s possible that Assistant Agent Fowler and Glidden 
were both political appointees and consequently lost their jobs following the election. 


258 







Biographies F ♦ Fowler - Fratis 


Fratis, John Sr. ( 1845 - 1906 ) 

Whaler, Bering and Okhotsk Seas and Arctic Ocean, 1859-1869 

Cook, St. Paul Island, Williams and Haven Company, 1869-1870 

Alaska Commercial Company, 1870-1890 

North American Commercial Company, 1892-1906 

Sealer, Laborer, St. Paul Island, 1870-1890, 1892-1906 

Cook, St. George Island, winter 1891 

Genealogy 

John Fratis was born January 20, 1845, 28 at the Ladrone Islands 29 (Guam), among the 
Mariana Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. Agent Charles Bryant noted in the 1873 St. 
Paul Island census that John Fratis was a Spanish Creole native of Guam. Agent Bryant 
wrote in his annual report dated September 20, 1873: 

An attempt was made, on June 11, by the general agent of the Alasl<a Commercial 
Company to induce the chiefs to adopt, as a native, to share in the sealing and its profits, 
an employe of the company, a Spanish creole, a native of the Ladrone Islands. This being 
contrary to the formerly established law of the Russians, and the principle always kept in 
view in all legislation—that to the natives of the island belongs the privilege of doing the 
labor and receiving the pay—this was not permitted. 30 

The unnamed individual in Bryant’s report was very likely John Fratis. 

John Fratis married Poleana (Ooleana) Schepetina [Stepeten], a native of St. Paul 
Island, in October 1870. 31 John and Poleana Fratis had six children, all born on St. Paul 
Island: Anna, born 1870, died June 28, 1889; Dahria (a daughter), born March 26, 1874; a 
son, May 7, 1876, 32 Susanna, born 1877; Ellen, 1883; and John Jr., June 18, 1886. 

After Poleana’s death circa 1889, 33 John Sr. left St. Paul Island for Unalaska on August 
19, 1889, in search of a new wife. 34 He returned to St. Paul on September 22, 1889, 35 mar¬ 
ried to nineteen-year-old Akoolena (Akulina) Kozmia. 36 Akulina gave birth to four chil¬ 
dren at St. Paul Island: Agrifma, born June 13, 1892; Simeon, February 15, 1894; Juliana, 
January 13, 1896; and Martha, February 19, 1899. 37 John Fratis Sr. died January 26, 1906, 
on St. Paul Island at sixty-four years of age. 3s 


Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

John Fratis Sr. provided the following deposition for the Tribunal of Arbitration on June 
10,1892, before Treasury Agent-in-Charge William H. Williams at St. Paul Island, Alaska: 

I am 47 years of age and was born on the Ladrone Islands. 39 1 can speak the English, 

Russian, and Spanish languages, and I understand the Aleut as it is spoken by the natives 
of St. Paul Island, Alaska. I came to St. Paul Island in 1869, and married a native woman 
and became one of the people; was made a native sealer and have resided here ever since. 

From 1859-1869,1 was employed on whaling vessels working in Bering and Okhotsk Seas 
and the Arctic Ocean. I have been along the coast of Bering and Okhotsk seas and along 
the coast of Alaska in the North Pacific Ocean from Sitka to Unalaska, and I never saw or 
heard tell of any place in American waters in that whole region, where the Alaskan fur seals 
haul out on land or breed, excepting on the seal islands of Bering Sea known as the Pribilof 

Islands_When Mr. Webster had charge of the killing at Northeast Point... I generally 

I V 


259 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


did the cooking there, and I cooked seal meat every day, and we all ate it, and our people 
live on seal meat, yet I never saw a sick or a diseased seal or a carcass that was unfit for 
food. 40 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

John Fratis landed at St. Paul Island during March 1869, as a cook in the employ of 
Williams and Havens Company of New London, Connecticut. In 1870, he began working 
as a cook and sealer with the Alaska Commercial Company. Fratis spent most of his life 
on St. Paul Island except for the year 1872-73, which he spent at San Francisco because of 
ill health, and 1891-92 when he and his family wintered at St. George Island, where John 
Fratis worked as cook for the North American Commercial Company. 41 


Fratis, John Jr. (b. 1886 ) 

Reindeer Herder, St. Paul Island 
Genealogy 

John Fratis Jr. was the son of John Fratis, from Guam, and Poleana (Ooleana) Schepetina 
[Stepeten] Fratis, a native of St. Paul Island. John Jr. was born June 18, 1886, at St. Paul 
Island, Alaska. 

Biographical Sketch 

John Fratis Jr. was the chief reindeer herder on St. Paul Island; John Mazeekin (aka 
Misikin?) was his assistant. The herders daily drove the herd, which totaled fifty-two in 
1913, from the corral to pasture. 42 







Owuclt/ aX , .'etTr* ^ 


T. Sedick, R. Bentley, John Hanson, John Fratis Jr., and other unidentified men in 
a pickup truck parked at the By-products Plant on St. Paul Island, October 1918. 
(NARA, College Park, MD, RG 22-MP-3-25.) 


260 



















Biographies F ♦ Notes 


1 Sharon Landwehr, Harry Clifford Fassett, Biographical Sketch,” California Academy of Sciences 
Library, Special Collections, San Francisco, http://www.calacademy.org/research/library/special/ 
bios/Fasett.htm (accessed May 2, 2004) 

2 Roger P. Kohin, The Gold-Rush Fassetts from Licking Co., Ohio,” from the Fassett Letters, 2001, 
http://physics.Clarku.edu/~rkohin/background/Fassett (accessed May 1, 2004); and Roger P. Kohin, 
Ancestry World Tree, Ancestry.com (accessed May 1, 2004). 

3 Landwehr, “Harry Clifford Fassett.” 

4 Donald J. Orth, Dictionary of Alaska Place Names, Geological Survey Paper 567 (Washington, DC: 
GPO, 1967), 13, stated that Fassett worked in Alaska in 1900-1919, suggesting that his career aboard 
the Albatross began in 1900. Orth did not mention Fassett’s work on the Pribilof Islands. 

5 Sharon Landwehr, “Harry Clifford Fassett.” 

6 Ward T. Bower and Henry D. Aller, Alaska Fisheries and Fur Industries, U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, 
Docs. Nos. 819, 834, 838, 847 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1915, 1917, 1917, and 1918), 67, 70, 80, 
and 70, respectively; Ward T. Bower, Alaska Fisheries and Seal Industries in 1919, U.S. Bureau of 
Fisheries Docs. no. 891 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1919), 77; and Ward T. Bower, Alaska Fisheries 
and Fur-Seal Industries in 1920, U.S. Dept, of Commerce, Bureau of Fisheries, Doc. no. 909 
(Washington, DC: GPO, 1921), 73. 

7 An in-depth review of the standardization of the spelling of family names is given in Betty A. 

Lindsay and John A. Lindsay, Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Genealogy and Census, NOAA Tech. Memo. 
NOS ORR 18 (2009), 3-5. 

8 Ibid., 5. 

9 U.S. Census, 1860, Wales, St. Claire County, MI, 1871 (1873, sic); Marriage Certificate no. 200, 
superintendent registrar’s district of Marylebone, England; death record no. 2217, New York City; 
death record, Washington, DC, 1917; “Obituary” of Emily Fish, Washington Post, Apr. 22, 1917; 

David Dickinson Dixon (sic), “Fish,” Ancestry World Tree, Ancestry.com, ID 1015; NARA, Civil War 
Pension File of Charles P. Fish, Widow Application no. 508932, Certificate no. 295713, box 37665, 
Washington, DC; Census Returns of England and Wales, 1871, Kew, Surrey, England, National 
Archives of the UK, Public Record Office, London, class RG 10, piece 705, folio 38, 12; and St. Paul 
Island Agent’s Log, Aug. 14, 1872. 

10 U.S. Census, 1850, Ypsilanti, Washtenaw County, MI, 436; Thomas Holmes, Horace Carpenter, and 
Samuel G. Ives, History of Washtenaw County, Michigan (Chicago: Chas. C. Chapman, 1881), 1224; 
and Franklin Ellis, History of Genesee County, Michigan, With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches 
(Philadelphia: Everts & Abbott, 1870), 205-8. 

11 Military Records of Individual American Civil War Soldiers, Kingston, M A, Historical Data Systems, 
1997-2000, Ancestry.com; Donald P. Warner, "Prelude to Populism,” Minnesota Historical Society 
Journal, Sept. 1951, 135; and University of Michigan General Catalogue of Officers and Students 
1837-1890 (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, 1891), 340. 

12 Charles Pattison Fish, Letter to Hon. Secretary of the Treasury John Sherman, Jan. 24, 1877, Alaska 
file of the office of the Secretary of the Treasury, 1868-1903, NARA, RG 22, microfilm M720, roll 
3, page 2 of letter; Census Returns of England and Wales, 1871, Kew, Surrey, England, National 
Archives of the UK, Public Record Office, London, England, class RG 10, piece 705, folio 38, page 12, 
NARA, New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957, year 1871, microfilm M237, box 351, line 26, list no. 
1133; “Passengers Arrived,” New York Times, Nov. 15, 1871, 8; and Civil War Pension File of Charles 
P. Fish, Widow Application no. 508932, Certificate no. 295713, NARA box 37665, Washington, DC. 

13 Rebecca Robbins Raines, Getting the Message Through: A Branch History of the U.S. Army Signal 
Corps, Center of Military History, U.S. Army, Historical Series (Washington, DC: GPO, 1996), 47. 

14 Civil War Pension File of Charles P. Fish, Widow Application no. 508932, Certificate no. 295713, 
NARA box 37665, Washington, DC. 

15 Raines, Getting the Message Through, 8-9; and Gary K. Grice, ed., “The Beginning of the National 
Weather Service: The Signal Service Years (1870-1891), As Viewed by Early Weather Pioneers,” 
states that the National Weather Service began with President Ulysses S. Grant signing a joint reso¬ 
lution of Congress authorizing the Secretary of War to establish a national weather service on Feb. 

9, 1870, http://www.nws.noaa.gov/pa/history/index.php (accessed May 10, 2009). On Feb. 25, 1870, 
the Secretary of War assigned this duty to the Signal Service Corps, http://weather.about.com/od/ 
weatherhistory/tp/Signal_Service.01.htm (accessed May 10, 2009). 

16 Ibid., 64. 


261 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


17 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, Aug. 14, 1872, 130. 

18 Henry W. Elliott, Report on the Pryhilov Group (Washington, DC: GPO, 1873), 164. 

19 Ibid., 165. 

20 Charles Pattison Fish, Jan. 24, 1877, Alaska file of the office of the Secretary of the Treasury, 1868- 
1903, NARA, RG 22, microfilm M720, roll 3, item 4363. 

21 Charles Pattison Fish, General Statement of Fish accounts with Alaska Commercial Company 
1873-1876 to Hon. Secretary of the Treasury John Sherman, Mar. 11, 1877, Alaska file of the office 
of the Secretary of the Treasury, 1868-1903, NARA, RG 22, microfilm M720, roll 3. 

22 Charles Pattison Fish, Letter, Aug. 13, 1877, “To The Hon ..., Assist. Secy. Of the Treasury,” Alaska 
file of the office of the Secretary of the Treasury, 1868-1903, NARA, RG 22, microfilm M720, roll 3. 

23 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, convened at Paris 
under the Treaty between the United States of America and Great Britain, concluded at Washington 
February 29, 1892, for the determination of questions between the two governments concerning the 
jurisdictional rights of the United States in the waters of Bering Sea, vol. 3 (Washington, DC: GPO, 
1895), 105. 

24 Ibid., 25 and 141. 

25 Family Group Record, IGI v. 5, Benjamin C. Fowler, http://www.family search.org. 

26 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries of Alaska and General 
Resources of Alaska, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1898), 175. Also published as U.S. Congress, 
House, 1898, 55th Congress, 1st sess., H. Doc. no. 92, vol. 1. Washington, DC: GPO. 

27 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, Apr. 10 and 21, 1885, 364. 

28 The St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1889, 116, stated Fratis’ birthday as Jan. 20, but without providing 
the year. The 1900 U.S. Census for St. Paul Island gave Fratis’ birth year as 1845. 

29 Besides Fratis’ own statement given in his Fur-Seal Arbitration deposition regarding his place of 
origin as the Ladrone Islands, it is also so stated in the July 31, 1890, Agent’s Census of St. Paul 
Island in U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1, 253. 

The Ladrone Islands included fifteen islands in the western Pacific Ocean formerly known as the 
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and which are now recognized as the independent 
island of Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands, http://www.answers.com/topic/mariana-islands 
(accessed May 9, 2009). 

30 U.S. Congress, House, “Letter from the Secretary of the Treasury, Jan. 20, 1876,” in Seal Fisheries in 
Alaska; 44th Cong., 1st sess., Ex. Doc. no. 83 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1876), 99-100. 

31 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1872-76, 75. 

32 Ibid., May 7, 1876, 409, commented on a son being born to John Fratis. 

33 Ibid., 1889, 150. 

34 Ibid., 169. 

35 Ibid., 178. 

36 John G. Brady, Report of the Governor of the District of Alaska to the Secretary of the Interior. 
(Washington, DC: GPO, 1902), 88. 

37 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1872-76, 75, and 1889, 16 and 78; St. Paul Island Census 1906, 15; and 
U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1, 253, 354 and 462. 

38 St. Paul Island Census, 1906, 15. 

39 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1872-76, 75 stated that John Fratis was born on Guam, previously 
known as Ladrone Island. 

40 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 107. 

41 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1872, 75 and 135; and St. George Island Census, 1891, 408 and 417. 

42 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, May 28, 1913 (unpaginated). 


262 




G 


GALANIN, PaRFIRI ( 1872 -CIRCA 1905 ) 

Rookery Guard, St. George Island, 1890s 

Genealogy 

Parfiri Galanin was born on St. George Island, November 20, 1873. The Pribilof census 
records spelled Parfiri’s given name variously, such as Parfara, Parfir, Parfaria, and Porfiri . 1 
Parfiri was the son of Borese (b. 1829 at Unalaska; d. circa 1889, St. George Island) and 
Okalina (aka Erina ) 2 Galanin (b. 1831 at Unalaska .). 3 Parfiri married Fevronia Swetzoff 
(born June 25, 1877) on November 22, 1893. 4 Fevronia Swetzoff was the daughter of 
Polexinia Swetzoff and granddaughter of Parscovia Sweetzof . 5 Pafiri Galanin died at St. 
George Island, circa 1905. 6 

Biographical Sketch 

Parfiri Galanin worked for the government as a guard of the rookeries on St. George 
Island during the 1890s. 


Gavitt, William ( 1855 - 1923 ) 

Special Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. George Island, 1887-1888 
Genealogy 

William Gavitt was born in January 1855 at Evansville, Indiana. He was the son of 
Evansville’s distinguished Major John Smith Gavitt, who died in a Civil War battle at 
Frederickstown, Missouri, on October 21, 1861, and Frances A. (Lamphere) Gavitt. 
William Gavitt married Dora Venneman on April 27, 1887, in Evansville. One week after 


263 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


the wedding, the couple set out from San Francisco for Alaska, arriving at St. George 
Island on May 30 of that year. William Gavitt died on August 7, 1923 in Evansville. 



William Gavitt was partly educated in the 
public schools and St. John’s school of this city 
[Evansville], and partly in the college at Teutopolis, 
Illinois. [He] was a student at Notre Dame, Indiana 
[at age 17, on September 26, 1872, studying 
Commerce; he received a Commercial Diploma 
on June 24, 1874], and afterward [became an] 
electrician at that celebrated institution of learning. 
When a mere boy he was upon the western plains, 
during the Black Hills gold excitement, as one 
of the advance telegraph operators. In 1887, he 
was appointed special agent for the United States 
Treasury Department, in charge of St. George 
William Gavitt. (Univ. of Notre Dame Island, Behring Sea, one of the seal islands. He 

Archives.) was complimented by the United States Senate 

in reports read before them and by Hon. C.S. 
Fairchild, his superior officer, then secretary of the treasury. Mr. Gavitt’s efforts on 
behalf of the oppressed natives of Alaska have been well known and have been properly 
complimented. He will do his duty as he finds it, regardless of consequences. He was 
arbitrator in the great railroad strikes here, when capital and labor were in anger arrayed 
against each other. In brief, these sorts of differences, because of his high sense of fitness 
and justice, were usually referred to him, and he did the public much good by his wise 
decisions and timely services. He was a citizen who was well known. 10 


Biographical Sketch 

William Gavitt and his brothers John and Joseph 
were raised by their grandmother, Alice Smith 
Gavitt. After her death in 1867, the boys’ guard¬ 
ian, John Augustus Reitz, saw to their education. 
Reitz, a wealthy businessman involved with rail¬ 
roads, banking, and real estate, had a great influ¬ 
ence on Gavitt. 8 In 1897, author Joseph P. Elliott 
summarized the achievements of William Gavitt’s 
life, which he characterized as an honorable one: 9 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

William Gavitt’s service as a special agent of the Treasury Department at the Seal Islands 
lasted just over one year, from May 1887 through August 1888. Whether he became a 
victim of powerful foes or simply couldn’t endure the pressures of remote island life is for 
other students of history to ascertain. 

In his reports on St. George Island activities, Special Agent Gavitt levied accusations 
of impropriety against employees of the Alaska Commercial Company. Those reports led 
to the formation of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Merchant Marine 
and Fisheries, originally convened as a special committee 

[t]o investigate the fur-seal fisheries of Alaska and all contracts or leases made by the 
Government with any person or companies for the taking of fur seals and other fur-bearing 


264 










Biographies G ♦ Gavitt 


animals in Alaska; the character, duration, and condition of such contracts or leases; and 
whether and to what extent the same have been enforced and complied with or violated; 
the receipts there-from, and the expenses incurred by the Government on account of any 
such contract or leases; and to fully investigate and report upon the nature and extent of 
the rights and interests of the United States in the fur seals and other fisheries in the Bering 
Sea in Alaska; whether and to what extent the same have been violated, and by whom; and 
what, if any, legislation is necessary for the better protection and preservation of the same. 11 

On December 18, 1888, William Gavitt testified before the U.S. House Committee on 
Merchant Marine and Fisheries regarding his earlier allegations of maltreatment of the 
Aleuts on St. George Island, as well as of government officials, by employees of the Alaska 
Commercial Company. For example, Gavitt alleged that some Native husbands were 
threatened with physical harm if their wives were not allowed to visit the ACC employees 
for immoral purposes. An Aleut girl was denied the right of marriage “in order to keep 
that girl for a prostitute.” The island priest was intimidated for attempting to intervene on 
behalf of his parishioners. 12 The modern term “whistle-blower” could aptly apply to him. 

The company’s intentions, I believe, are honest and upright, but in regard to their men 
employed on the island I can not use severe language sufficient to cover their case. The 
men with whom I have dealt, that is, myself and my wife, did not respect the laws of God, 
or man or my wife’s presence or my position. I am referring to Mr. Webster, Dr. Lutz, John 
Kirk, and a man named John Hall. This administration expected a Government officer to 
take his wife there, and I took my wife from the altar to the St. George Island, and I have 
regretted it ever since. I wish a distinction to be understood between the honest intention 
of the gentlemen in San Francisco and that crowd of men that they have entrusted with 
their business on that island. I wish for that to be distinctly understood. I believe that 
the company itself is honest and upright in its intentions.... I refer to their powers to 
antagonize a sworn officer of the law and to make him miserable and crucify him. 13 

Gavitt lacked influential and outspoken supporters willing or able to testify in his 
favor. He stood nearly alone in his attack against the injustices he observed at St. George 
Island. He did have the support of at least some of the St. George Island Natives (see Peter 
Rezanoff’s biography). However, they apparently lacked credibility among members of 
the congressional committee. 

Gavitt was characterized by others, including his supervisor, Special Treasury Agent 
of the Seal Islands George Tingle, as an incompetent man with a weak mind, unable 
to perform the task at hand. Tingle obtained affidavits from ACC employees Dr. Lutz, 
Daniel Webster, and John Kirk denying Gavitt’s allegations. Gavitt was further discredited 
in testimonies given by those called before the committee; they claimed that no impropri¬ 
eties or misconduct by employees of the lessee had occurred on the Island of St. George. 
Agent Tingle presented William Gavitt to the Committee as a man who had disturbed 
harmony between the Natives and the white people of the station and who had falsified 
the Treasury Department’s daily journal (the log). 14 

Few came to Gavitt’s defense, but one was Special Agent T. F. Ryan. A New York Times 
article reported: 

T.F. Ryan, another special agent of the Government at the island of St. George from April 
1885 to 1887, attributed the lack of discipline and the loose morals on the island of St. 

George partly to the improper conduct and neglect of duty of some of the Government 
agents, which was in turn imitated by the agents of the company. When witness [Ryan ij ] 
went to the islands he had no instructions from the Government. The Secretary of the 


265 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


Treasury had told him to write his own instructions. Witness then formulated rules 
forbidding females on the island from visiting the company and the Government houses, 
but Mr. Tingle, his superior officer, had declared such a rule null and void. It was impossible 
to imagine, he said, what influenced Mr. Tingle to do this, as the order was issued in the 
interests of law and decency. 16 

The 1888 congressional investigation focused the attention of leading newspapers 
on the affairs of the Alaska Commercial Company in the Seal Islands. Critics took aim at 
and weakened the company’s credibility as a lessee when it was vying for renewal of the 
twenty-year contract the next year. The Alaska Commercial Company lost the contract, 
although not entirely, if at all, due to Gavitt’s expose; other political intrigues involving 
President Benjamin Harrison and Secretary of State James Blaine likely played significant¬ 
ly in the decision to award the new twenty-year lease to the North American Commercial 
Company. George Tingle, government agent testifying in opposition to Gavitt, became 
agent of the North American Commercial Company. 

The committee failed to take issue with Gavitt’s allegations, and life on the Pribilofs 
continued without change. Gavitt returned to Indiana, where he had a strong family pres¬ 
ence. After his year in Alaska, he became a community leader, recognized as a strong 
individual—not a weak personage, as presented to the committee by men of influence. 

Possibly Gavitt’s personality was ill-suited for St. George community life. Even today 
environmental conditions are harsh, and despite having satellite communications and 
paved runways (installed 2005-06), the Pribilof Islands—and St. George Island in par¬ 
ticular—remain relatively isolated from mainland Alaska. Outsiders who worked on 
those remote islands for any length of time in the late nineteenth century likely possessed 
strong-willed and often rough personalities, and their work required physical stamina 
unlike anything imaginable today. Further, their employers, both public and private, ex¬ 
pected financial success, which was not easily achieved. Such men might well not respect 
those with more gentle manners. 

As a postscript, the character and credibility of William Gavitt’s supervisor, George 
Tingle, came into question in 1890 when he encountered Treasury Agent Charles Goff 
(see Goff’s and Tingle’s biographies). 


GEOGHEGAN, RICHARD HENRY ( 1866 - 1943 ) 

Linguist expert in the Aleut language 

Genealogy 

“Richard Henry Geoghegan was born in Dublin [Ireland] in 1866, the oldest son of a 
prominent Irish physician.” 17 He had at least one sibling, a brother, James T. Geoghegan. 18 
Richard Geoghegan died in 1943 after a long illness. 19 


266 




Biographies G ♦ Gavitt - Geoghegan 


Biographical Sketch 

Richard Geoghegan had a childhood accident which left him physically disabled for 
life. According to Pribilof Islands historian and Aleut civil liberties advocate Fredericka 
Martin, his physical handicap steered his interest toward self-study of language, beginning 
with Chinese. His scholarly achievements earned him scholarships to Oxford University 
from linguists Professor James Legge and Oxford University Vice-Chancellor Jowett. He 
graduated and taught languages at various colleges in England. Then, as he recounted: 

When I came to Alaska, in the fall of 1902, the possible connections between the Asiatic 
and the American languages attracted my attention and as at that time, I was in the employ 
of our Uncle Samuel [“Uncle Sam”] as an officer of his district court, 20 1 had an opportunity 
for traveling over practically all parts of this Territory, and became especially intrigued by 
the Aleut tongue. My official duties and the necessity for constantly moving from place to 
place allowed me but scant opportunity to acquire a speaking knowledge of it, or even to 
make all the notes that I should have desired, but, later, when I settled in Fairbanks, 1 took 
pains to secure all the known printed matter in and on Aleutian. This, not with the idea 
of dedicating my days to “Innuitology,” but rather for the purpose of making comparisons 
with Chinese, Japanese, Manchu, Tibetan, Korean, Siamese and Kambojoan, 21 etc., whereof 
I picked up smatterings in the previous years. 22 

Fredericka Martin followed Geoghegan’s commentary with her own: 

A smattering, if I may be forgiven for explaining the obvious, often seemed to Richard 
Geoghegan synonymous with what others would consider the result of a lifetime’s study, 
for his “smatterings” consisted of an encyclopedic knowledge of over two hundred 
languages and dialects. 23 

Richard Geoghegan’s death left his good friend Fredericka Martin to complete work 
on his book The Aleut Language. However, Geoghegan’s words introduced his work: 

The Aleut language is such a strongly differentiated 
dialect of the regular Eskimo language that it may 
almost be characterized as a distinct language 
although its structure is purely Eskimoid. 

Dr. Svend Frederiksen of the University of 
Copenhagen informed me that specimens of the 
language spoken on Kodiak Island which I sent 
him were readily understandable. He is thoroughly 
conversant with Greenlandic Eskimo. However the 
examples of Aleut I submitted, with the exception 
of an occasional word, were not comprehensible. 

And the Reverend Hinz who has written a grammar 
of the Kuskokwim Eskimo dialect, reported that 
although he could understand the samples of 
Kodiak dialect the Aleutian seemed almost a 
foreign tongue. 

These differences pose an interesting problem for 
philologists. 24 

The present authors did not learn whether 
Richard Geoghegan ever visited the Pribilof 
Islands, but the significance of his contribution 


THE 


Aleut 

Language 


UNITED STATES 
DEPARTMENT OF THE 
INTERIOR 


1944 


Cover of The Aleut Language, by Richard 
Geoghegan and Fredericka Martin. 


267 










Pribilof Islands: The People 


to preserving the heritage of the Aleuts, whether they reside on the Pribilofs or elsewhere, 
cannot be overstated. 


Gill, Edward James ( 1851 - 1876 ) 

Meteorologist, U.S. Army Signal Corps, Weather Service, 1876 
Genealogy 

Edward James Gill was born March 21, 1851, in Brooklyn, New York, the son of James 
Darrell Gill and Emily W. (Vosburgh) Gill. Edward Gill was orphaned at an early age. 
Edward’s mother died in Brooklyn, New York, February 11, 1857. Edward Gill’s father 
was born in Newfoundland, Canada, of Nicolas Gill and Elizabeth (Burton) Gill. James 
Darrell Gill died in Brooklyn on March 9, 1864. Edward’s siblings were: Theodore Nicolas; 
Adelaide E.; Albert J.; Anselle V. W.; Caroline Emily; and Herbert A. Gill. Edward J. Gill 
died on St. Paul Island, Alaska, October 22, 1876. 25 

Biography 

Edward James Gill was descended from Captain Michael Gill (1672-1720), a merchant 
trader of Charlestown, Massachusetts, who in 1698 began shipping salt, salt pork, and 
New England cider to Newfoundland. Michael’s two sons, Michael Jr. (1699-1773) and 
Nicholas Gill, emigrated from New England to St. John’s, Newfoundland, and by 1768 
were leaders in Newfoundland’s government. “The Gills seem to have held most of the 
Government offices; Michael was Judge of the Vice-Admiralty Court, Keeper of the Rolls, 
J.P. [Justice of the Peace], public auctioneer, sole sworn broker, and sole notary public, 
and, later on, lieutenant-colonel of militia; his brother Nicholas seems to have had all 
the other posts.” 26 In the 1790s, Edward’s grandfather, Nicolas Gill Jr. (1770-1855), with 
Edward’s uncle, Joseph Gill, founded Gill & Company, a trading firm headquartered at St. 
John’s. 

The Gill firm was involved in the West Indian trade exporting salt cod to the Indies and 
importing rum and molasses. Nicolas also established a branch of the firm in New York 
City in the 1830’s. Nicolas Gill sent his son James Darrell Gill to New York to manage the 
family firm. That firm operated as a distribution centre for Newfoundland products such 
as seal pelts, seal oil, cod-liver oil, and furs. In return, sugar, corned beef, and clothing were 
shipped to Newfoundland. 27 

Descendants of the Gill family in the United States prospered and continued the family 
relationship with the sea—not in the pursuit of commerce but in the pursuit of science. 
Three brothers were involved with the Bering Sea and the Seal Islands. Edward, the sub¬ 
ject of this biography, embarked on a career with the Army Signal Corps Weather Service 
as a meteorologist, although his life ended suddenly on St. Paul Island. Edward’s sister, 
Caroline Gill, acknowledged him in her last will and testament: 

Item 6.1 give and bequeath to the Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Alaska 
in whose jurisdiction is located the grave of my brother Edward J. Gill, in the Island of St. 

Paul, Alaska, and his successors in office the sum of One thousand dollars ($1000) in trust 


268 






Biographies G ♦ Geoghegan - Gill 


to invest and re-invest the same in some safe securities and to apply the income arising 
there from to the care of the grave and headstone of my said brother. 28 

Edwards older brother, Theodore Nicolas Gill (1837—1914), became a recognized 
expert taxonomist in ornithology, ichthyology, mammalogy, and malacology. He became 
a librarian at the Smithsonian Institution, and later he became an assistant librar¬ 
ian (1866-75) at the Library of Congress. He became a professor of zoology at George 
Washington University. Edward’s younger brother, Herbert A. Gill (1857-1937), served 
as the chief clerk of the U.S. Fish Commission in Washington, D.C., in 1893. During 
1895-96, Herbert Gill served as the Acting Commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, 
which had authority over the Seal Islands. 29 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

In May 1876, the St. Paul Island Bering Sea Weather and Signal Station was the most remote 
of the twenty-two Signal Service stations 31 ’ under the War Department. 31 Meteorologist 
Edward Gill arrived at St. Paul Island on May 20, 1876, to replace meteorologist Charles 
P. Fish, who had resigned his commission. 32 Gill was the second meteorologist stationed 
on St. Paul Island after the inception of the National Weather Service within the U.S. 
Army Signal Service in 1870. (See Charles P. Fish biography for a brief history of the Army 
Signal Corps, Signal Service, and Weather Service). He was in government service for 
only five months before he died on October 22, 1876, of a heart attack resulting from ex¬ 
haustion and cold. He had ventured to the north shore of St. Paul Island with Dr. Dennis 
Meany and carpenter Seth Washburn. The men were guided by two Natives, Antone 
Melovedoff and Ivan Galanin, when a gale overtook the party. 

They crossed the island by the eastern base of Bogosloff and arrived at the north shore 
about eleven o’clock, stopped at the station house there and lunched, from there they 
started to follow the shore around the west end and south side of the island back to the 
village stopping at the north west station house to lunch again continuing on past the 
west point and turned then heading for the station at S.W. bay and when within one mile 
of there the storm came on, the wind blowing in their faces they were soon wet through. 

Here Mr. Gill first gave out complaining of weakness in his knees. They reached the station 
house there at a quarter before five. The old house here had been allowed to go into decay 
and a new one partially built in that there was no shelter there and the whole party were 
too exhausted that to remain there would be at the risk of all their lives. The two natives 
were sent forward to reach the village and send assistance while the others followed as 
they best could. These two natives reached the village about half past seven but [were] so 
worn out that at first they could not be understood. As soon as they were able to give the 
necessary information, the mules were harnessed to the wagon and Mr. Hamden McIntyre 
and a driver started. But, owing to the thick darkness, it was necessary for one to go on 
foot ahead with a lantern to find the way. [W]hen a half mile out Mr. Washburn was met 
saying that Mr. Gill was near the lake unable to come any further and that Dr. Meany was 
with him. All possible haste was made and on reaching the lake, Mr. Gill was found to be 
helpless and Dr. Meany was in a dangerous condition. They were immediately brought to 
the house where preparations were made to receive them. All possible efforts were made 
to restore them with the foregoing result. On leaving S. W. bay Mr. Gill was unable to 
travel without assistance. Dr. Meany and Mr. Washburn had him between them until they 
reached the head of the Lagoon when the tide was so high that they had to walk on the 
upland where the thick grass so entangled Mr. Gills feet as to make traveling impossible so 
that at this point Mr. Gill lay down. Dr. Meany remained] and help[ed] his limbs and body 
to keep up the circulation while Mr. Washburn continued to the village, reaching it without 


269 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


assistance before the boyes [sic] overtook him on their return.... Mr. Hamden McIntyre 
[of the Alaska Commercial Company] took charge of the body, had him removed to his 
quarters and laid out in his uniform.... Mr. McIntyre made a coffin. A grave was dug in the 
cemetery by permission for his interment with the understanding that should there be any 
objection from the priest to his remaining there he is to be removed. 33 

Edward James Gill’s remains still lie undisturbed beneath a granite stone in the grave¬ 
yard adjacent to the Russian Orthodox Church at St. Paul Island. 



Edward James GUI’s gravestone in Saints Peter and Paul Churchyard, St. Paul Island, 2007. Gravestone 
inscription reads: Edward James Gill, Born March 21, 1851, Brooklyn, New York, Died October 22, 
1876, St. Paul Island. (Photo: John Lindsay, NOAA.) 


Glidden, Henry A. (b. 1821 ) 

Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. Paul Island, 1882-1885 
Pribilof Islands Experience 

Agent Henry Glidden’s entries into the Agent’s Log offered perspective on the isolation 
of the Pribilof Islands. His entries during April of 1885, also suggested concern about his 
future as agent, as agents were typically political appointees during that era. 

The steamer Dora appeared in sight in the direction of St. George island, apparently from 
six to ten miles away. A cordon of ice about the island of St. Paul prevented her coming any 
nearer and she was obliged to put back and return to Onnalaska. It was an aggravation and 
a disappointment as we were curious to get the news from the outside world, especially the 
result of the presidential election in November last. 


270 







Biographies G ♦ Gill - Goff 


Capt. Williams of the brig Hidalgo called at the island for a few moments and brought us 
a bundle of papers. From these we learn that Grover Cleveland, a democrat, was elected 
president. 34 

Glidden’s brief entry to the St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, May 29, 1885, stated, “Being 
relieved from duty by a change in the politics of the national administration. I return to 
San Francisco by the St. Paul in a few days” 35 George R. Tingle replaced him as agent-in- 
charge on that day. 

According to the Agent’s Log, Henry Glidden’s wife accompanied him on the island 
during his tenure. 36 


Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

The following is an excerpt from Henry Glidden’s deposition for the Tribunal of Arbitration 
on April 15, 1892, before Notary Public Charles L. Hughes at Washington, D.C.: 

I reside at Albion, in the State of New York, am 61 years of age, a lawyer by profession, and 
am not in the employ of the United States Government. I was appointed special Treasury 
agent in charge of the seal islands under Secretary Folger. On May 31, 1882,1 arrived on St. 

Paul Island, and remained there until June 8, 1885, only returning once to the States to pass 
the winter of 1883-84.1 was located the entire time on St. Paul Island. 37 


Goff, Charles James ( 1847 - 1905 ) 

Special Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. Paul Island, 1889-1890 


Genealogy 

Charles Goff was born on July 3,1847, at the family 
home known as “Waldomore” 3s in Clarksburg, 
Harrison County, Virginia (now West Virginia). 
Charles was the fifth child of nine children born 
to Waldo Potter Goff and Harriet Louise (Moore) 
Goff. Charles Goff married Eva S. Hart (1855-95), 
daughter of Ira Hart, the local iron works manu¬ 
facturer, on October 31, 1876, in Clarksburg. 
After a successful business career, “Charles James 
Goff, died 57 years old, at Providence Hospital, 
Washington, D.C., Jan. 7, 1905.” 39 

Biographical Sketch 

Charles Goff spent his formative years in the com¬ 
pany of such prominent relatives as his father, a 
“self made prosperous merchant and land specu¬ 
lator,” justice of the peace and former state sena¬ 
tor; 40 his uncle, Nathan, who “organized the First 

National Bank in Harrison County, became the 

c 



Captain C J. Goff. 

Charles James Goff. (Harrison County 
Herald, 1902.) 


271 









Pribilof Islands: The People 


county’s wealthiest citizen, and served several terms in the West Virginia Legislature;” 41 
and brothers Thomas, a physician, and Nathan Jr., a lawyer and politician. 

Charles Goff's military service as a U.S. Volunteer from Virginia during the Civil 
War earned him the rank of captain and artillery quartermaster in the Union Army. 42 In 
1898, Captain Goff volunteered to serve the United States during the Spanish-American 
War, and served as an assistant quartermaster. Captain Charles Goff became part of the 
Harrison County delegation to the Republican State Convention on July 27, 1876. 43 

The 1880 U.S. Census recorded the family as living in the Coal District of Clarksburg, 
with Charles Goff working as a liquor merchant, and his wife, Eva, age 25, keeping house. 
The census also listed a daughter, Ira Hart, age one and one-half years. Goff’s Uncle 
Nathan (1798-1885), age 82, a banker, lived next door. 44 In 1881, Goff’s brother Nathan 
Jr. was appointed Secretary of the Navy in President Rutherford Hayes’ Cabinet. Nathan 
Jr. asked Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz to appoint his brother Charles as an Indian 
agent in New Mexico. 45 Charles’ subsequent experience in New Mexico, as well as the 
Goff family’s political position in the Republican Party, presumably led to his selection as 
a Treasury agent for St. Paul Island in 1889, under the newly installed Republican presi¬ 
dent, Benjamin Harrison. His appointment followed the resignation of Treasury Agent 
George R. Tingle, a fellow West Virginian. 

The lives of brothers Charles and Nathan Jr. were closely knit in politics as well as in 
business. Many of Charles Goff’s business ventures such as those in Clarksburg, West 
Virginia are listed in Acts of the West Virginia Legislature. 46 Among his partners in these 
buisiness ventures was Hugh H. McIntyre, former government special agent and then 
ACC superintendent and general manager on St. Paul Island.Charles’ business ventures 
included: 

Feb 10, 1883: Atwell Burglar Proof Sash Lock Company, Clarksburg 

March 3, 1884: Clarksburg Natural Gas Company, Clarksburg (his brothers-in-law John B. 

Hart and Charles M. Hart were also partners) 

1886-1890: silver mill in New Mexico (partners included his brother Nathan Jr.) 47 

August 8, 1887: Harrison County Oil and Gas Company was incorporated. (His brother, 
now Judge Nathan Goff, and brother-in-law Charles M. Hart were members.) “The 
Company’s purpose was to bore for, obtain, and sell oil and natural gas, with its main office 
in Clarksburg,” with a total authorized capital of $500,000. 48 

March 31, 1890: Harrison County Development 
Company, "organized by a certain H.H. McIntyre 
of West Randolph, VT.” 49 “The company’s purpose 
was to mine, manufacture and sell oil, gas, coal, 
iron ore and other minerals, and to construct 
necessary tramways and railways, with its main 
office in Clarksburg.” 50 

November, 1893: Cherry Camp Oil Company 
(brother Nathan Jr. was also a partner) 51 

Charles Goff died in 1905. His obituary from Goff homestead “Waldomore(National 

the Clarksburg Telegram extolled his life: Register of Historic Places, National Park 

Service, Clarksburg, WV.) 



272 



Biographies G ♦ Goff 


Captain Goff’s Death. 

Captain Charles J. Goff, of this city, died in Providence hospital in Washington City at 6:00 
o’clock Saturday morning, but word was not received here until 6:00 o’clock that evening. 

He had been in Washington about a month and was stopping at the National Hotel. A week 
prior to his death he was seized with pneumonia and Wednesday was removed from the 
hotel to the hospital, where his condition was not regarded serious until a few hours before 
death came. 

Charles J. Goff was born in Clarksburg fifty-seven years ago, and was a son of Waldo P. 

Goff, now deceased, who was a prominent merchant that came here from New York in 
pioneer days and became one of Clarksburg’s leading citizens. Captain Goff married Miss 
Eva Hart, sister of Messrs. Charles M. and John B. Hart, Mrs. H. T. Wilson and Miss Lillie 
Hart, and daughter of Ira Hart, now deceased. Mrs. Goff died nine years ago last July. 

Surviving him of the immediate family is his daughter, Mrs. Ira Camden, wife of S. D. 

Camden, of Parkersburg; Judge Nathan Goff, his brother, Mrs. Richard T. Lowndes, Sr., and 
Mrs. George W. Porter, of Indianapolis, sisters of the deceased. 

Captain Goff served as a railway mail clerk a number of years, running between Grafton 
and Washington City, and under the Harrison administration he served as inspector and 
agent for the United States government at the Island of St. Paul, near Alaska, the work of 
the position being the protection of furs, seals, fisheries, etc. Later he was Immigration 
Inspector for the United States and was stationed at Montreal and other parts of Canada 
and other points of country [sic], having his headquarters for some time in New York City. 

During the Spanish-American war Captain Goff held a position as assistant quartermaster 
and had charge of the transport, now Thomas, running then between Key West and Cuba 
and part of the time was stationed at Santiago, Cuba, and after the famous battle was in 
charge of the department of supplies there. 

At the close of the war he came home and engaged in the development of oil fields in the 
county, especially near and around Bristol, where a splendid development was well under 
way at the time of his demise, and from which he and those associated with him in the 
business were deriving handsome revenues. 

The deceased was one of Clarksburg’s life-long prominent citizens in business, society 
and politics. For many years he was active in the Republican battles for supremacy in this 
state and did the party good service, commanding at all times a wide influence, not only 
in his native county, but other parts of the state as well. He was a gentleman of intellectual 
attainment, cultured and whole-souled and every one who knew him did so only to be his 
friend, as he was one whose friendship was warm and sincere. 

The remains arrived Monday morning accompanied by Dr. W.P. Goff, his nephew, and S.D. 
Camden, his son-in-law, who went to Washington City Saturday night to bring them home, 
and were taken to his home at the Waldomoore [sic]. 

The funeral will be held at the residence Tuesday afternoon at 2:30 o’clock and will be 
conducted by Rev. J. F. Plummer, of Christ Episcopal church. Interment will be in the Odd 
Fellows cemetery. 52 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Charles GofF deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration in Washington, D.C., on April 13, 
1892, before Notary Public Sevellon A. Brown. Following is an excerpt from his deposi¬ 
tion. 


I am 45 years of age. During the years 1889 and 1890 I occupied the position of special 
Treasury agent in charge of the Pribilof Islands. I was located on St. Paul Island, only 
visiting St. George Island occasionally. About the 1st of June, 1889,1 arrived on St. Paul 


273 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


Island and remained there until October 12, 1889, when I returned to San Francisco for 
the winter. Again went to the islands in 1890, arriving there about the last week in May 
and remaining until August 12, 1890.... During my first year on the islands the Alaska 
Commercial Company was the lessee thereof, and during my second year the North 
American Commercial Company. In 1889,1 made careful observations of the rookeries 
on St. Paul Island and marked out the areas covered by the breeding grounds. In 1890 I 
examined these lines made by me the former year and found a very great shrinkage in the 
spaces covered by breeding seals. 

In 1889 it was quite difficult for the lessees to obtain their full quota of 100,000 skins; so 
difficult was it in fact, that in order to turn off a sufficient number of four and five years- 
old males from the hauling grounds for breeding purposes in the future, the lessees were 
compelled to take about 50,000 skins of seals of one or two years of age. I at once reported 
this fact to the Secretary of the Treasury, and advised the taking of a less number of skins 
the following year. Pursuant to such report the Government fixed upon the number of 
skins to be taken as 60,000, and further ordered that all killing of seals upon the islands 
should stop after the 20th day of July. I was further ordered that I should notify the natives 
upon the Aleutian Islands that all killing of seals while coming from or going to the seal 
islands was prohibited. 53 

Charles James Goff came from a financially secure and politically powerful family. 
He was not one to be easily intimidated, and by association with his brother Nathan, he 
represented a political threat to the North American Commercial Company (NACC) and 
to Stephen B. Elkins, who in 1891 became the Secretary of War (see Elkins biography). 
Circumstantial it may be, but Goff’s involuntary resignation as Treasury agent suggests 
he became a victim of politics. 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Whereas William Gavitt created a controversy over abuses to humans on the Pribilofs 
(see Gavitt’s biography), Charles James Goff stirred the pot to a boil over the unbridled 
slaughter of fur seals. 

The thirty-two-year-old Goff arrived at St. Paul Island in 1889. He approached his 
job as Treasury agent with seriousness; he was not afraid to uphold his duties by taking a 
stand. In 1889, he reported to Secretary of the Treasury, William Windom, his alarm over 
a marked decline and apparent depletion of the Pribilof Islands seal herd. His actions led 
to considerable political intrigue and inspired others to save the northern fur seal from 
extinction—the fate encountered by most of its cousins. Agent Goff wrote: 

close observation ... revealed the fact that it [the decline of the seal rookeries] was owing 
to the scarcity of the seals ... and as the killing by the Alaska Commercial Company 
proceeded, the daily, weekly, and monthly receipts were much smaller than ever before. 

The small number of pups killed ... for food ..., and the alarming decrease in the daily, 
weekly, and monthly receipts of the Alaska Commercial Company, and as a dernier [last] 54 
resort by said company to secure their 100,000 skins the killing of smaller seals than was 
customary, attest conclusively ... that there is a scarcity of seals, and that within the last 
year or so they are from some cause decreasing far beyond the increase. 

As this is the last year of the present lease and there is a new lease to be made, I would 
respectfully suggest that it is of vital importance to the existence of seal life that the annual 
quota in the future be limited to the taking of 60,000 skins as the maximum from the 
Pribilof Islands. 55 


274 





Biographies G ♦ Goff 


Goff s report was in marked contrast to the one given by his predecessor, George R. 
Tingle, in 1888 (the same man who took issue with Assistant Agent William Gavitt at St. 
George Island the year before). Tingle wrote that the herd was at least maintaining its full 
number. 

I have made frequent and close inspections of the rookeries this year and find the lines of 
occupancy extended beyond those of last year.... It is certain, however, this vast number of 
animals ... is still on the increase. 

The number of seals at present shown to be on the breeding rookeries of the two islands is 
as follows - 6,357,750. 56 

Oddly, Tingle stated elsewhere in his report: “I think that a deduction of one-fourth 
from the above would show more nearly correct the true number of seals on the islands. 57 

The difference between the assessments of Tingle in 1888 and Goff in 1889, when 
the latter reported that the ACC encountered difficulties securing its 100,000 skins, is 
remarkable. 5s Four to six million seals and they can’t fill their quota of 100,000? This must 
have been the question going through Goff’s mind. Following an investigation in 1890 
by Goff and Henry Elliott, as mentioned below, the fur-seal census on the islands totaled 
1,059,000 seals; the estimates would continue to fall to 150,000 by 1903. 59 

Goff’s annual report for 1889, dated July 31, 1889, coincided with the end of the seal 
harvest. He sent an unusual supplementary report dated December 23,1889, to Secretary 
of the Treasury Windom from his home in Clarksburg, West Virginia. The report con¬ 
tained an alarming statement: 

From the first I was forcibly impressed with the decrease in number, taking as a guide the 
report of my predecessor, the Hon. George R. Tingle; but thinking I might be mistaken, 
and not wishing to sound a needless alarm to the Department, I ventured the suggestion of 
taking 60,000 seals as the maximum for the first five years of the new lease, the number to 
be increased or decreased as the Secretary may deem advisable. I now, without hesitation, 
after a more careful observation of the entire situation, think that my suggestion of 60,000 
was too high, and would respectfully insert instead 50,000 as the maximum.... I regard 
it absolutely essential, for the future of the rookeries, that prompt action be taken by the 
Department for the suppression of illegal killing of seals in Bering Sea, and that the utmost 
economy be observed in taking the seals allowed by law. There should be no killing after 
July 20. 60 

Goff’s recommendation did not sit well with the potential new lease-holders, the 
NACC, or with the Harrison administration. Nonetheless, he rattled the cage sufficiently 
to bring attention to the potential plight of a significant U.S. revenue source. Congress 
legislated to send an expert to the Seal Islands to investigate Goff’s allegations. Henry 
Wood Elliott, the only recognized fur-seal expert at the time, accepted the appointment 
from Treasury Secretary Windom. 

In the meantime, the North American Commercial Company secured the next twen¬ 
ty-year lease to harvest seals, effective May 1890, and the ACC transferred its property 
on the islands to the NACC. Secretary Windom directed Charles Goff to oversee the 
transfer; Rudolph Neumann for the ACC and George R. Tingle for the NACC conducted 
inventories and appraised the value of property. 61 Two days after the inventory had been 
completed on both islands, and settlement concluded, Nathan Goff Jr. arrived “to remain 


275 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


during the season.” However, he stayed for only two weeks. 62 Although his trip was not 
mentioned directly in the St. Paul Island Treasury Agent’s Log, we might assume Nathan 
journeyed to the Seal Islands to support his brother against possible retribution by the 
NACC including George Tingle, and to lend his legal and political acumen in support of 
the government’s interest. 

While Henry Wood Elliott and Agent-in-Charge Charles Goff toiled to protect the 
fur seal from extinction under their combined authorities, which were limited to the land 
harvest alone, a small number of influential officials in the government’s executive branch 
fully recognized the impact of pelagic sealing on the size of the herd—and more impor¬ 
tantly to them, the impact on the coffers of the NACC and the U.S. Treasury. 

Before Elliott presented his report of the investigation, Goff submitted three signifi¬ 
cant findings. The first: 

1. With this undeniable decrease in merchantable seals, and knowing the impoverished 
conditions of the rookeries and hauling grounds, and believing it to be inimical to the best 
interests of the Government to extend the time for killing beyond July 20,1 adhered to the 
letter and spirit of your instructions to me and closed the killing season July 20, against the 
bitter protestations of Mr. George R. Tingle, general manager for the lessees. 63 

Goff enclosed Tingle’s protest, which included the following: 

The law says the lessees shall give the natives a maintenance out of the taking of the seal 
skins. How can that provision of the law be carried out when the Government steps in 
and stops the lessees from killing when they are taking a thousand seals a day? By the 
enforcement of your order ... you deprive the natives of a maintenance; you deprive the 
Government of large revenue; or cause the North American Commercial Company great 
loss; you turn over to the marauders and other natural enemies of the seals in the water 
many thousands of fine, killable, merchantable seals, which we could take without any 
detriment whatever to the rookeries. 

We have every reason to believe, from the marked increase of new arrivals of seals, that 
if we were allowed, by you to continue our killing under the law we could fill our quota of 
60,000 seals. 64 

By July 20, 1890, the NACC had killed only 21,357 seals, 65 whereas the year before the 
total killed by the ACC by July 20 reached 100,135, 66 and the ACC had struggled to reach 
that number. The average number of seals killed per day of harvest in 1890 was 522; in 
1889 the average was 1,974. 67 Tingle’s arguments for extending the harvest season to July 
31, as provided by law, with the prospect of the NACC reaching a quota of 60,000—never 
mind 100,000—lacked credibility. 

Goff’s other two findings were stated thus: 

2.1 respectfully suggest that there be no killing of fur seals for their skins on these islands, 
nor in the waters of Bering Sea, for an indefinite number of years, to be named by the 
Secretary of the Treasury, and let nature take her course in replenishing the rookeries. 68 

3. The limited number of seals killed this season by the lessees will undoubtedly leave the 
majority of the natives in absolute want, and their condition will appeal to the Department 
for aid. 

The amount distributed to the natives upon the islands of St. Paul and St. George was 
$6,783.30 and $1,644.80, respectively. This will not be sufficient to provide them with the 


276 




Biographies G ♦ Goff 


necessaries of life until the steamers return in the spring, especially so with the natives of 
St. George Island. 

The Department will have to make some provision for the support and maintenance of 
these people, as their mode of making a living has been destroyed for the present, and the 
future is only what the charity of the Government will make it. There is utterly nothing 
here upon which they can depend for a livelihood until the much wished-for return of seals 
takes place, an event too far in the future to give even a promise of better times to these 
unfortunate people. 69 

Historian G. Wayne Smith correctly recognized a “skirmish” between Stephen B. 
Elkins, social and financial friend of the NACC, and the Goffs, one that later cost Charles 
Goff his position as government agent on the Pribilof Islands. Nathan Goff Jr. was a po¬ 
litical foe of Stephen B. Elkins, who was appointed by the Harrison Administration as 
Secretary of War in 1891 and, as noted, had close ties with the NACC (see Elkins biogra¬ 
phy). Historian Smith wrote in his book about Nathan Goff Jr.: 

One can imagine that Elkins took quick advantage of the defeats Goff suffered [failing 
to win the governorship of West Virginia] in 1888 and 1889 and the loss of the 1890 
campaign. Elkins’ high position in the party also had enabled him to influence certain 
patronage matters with some adversity to Goff’s interests. 70 

Agent Goff’s recommendation to bring a halt to pelagic sealing did not go unheeded 
by President Harrison. The President, Secretary of War Elkins, and Secretary of State 
Blaine did their best to “persuade” the British to stop killing seals at sea. However, while 
publicly agreeing that the land harvest must also step back in intensity, they secret¬ 
ly worked the system, in part through Secretary of the Treasury Foster, who replaced 
Secretary Windom in 1891, to enable their social and political friends of the NACC to 
continue the land harvest. Normally Elliott reported to Secretary of the Treasury Foster; 
however, when Elliott was about to release his 1890 report, which contained damning 
information not only about pelagic sealing but also about the land harvest, Secretary of 
State Blaine interceded with him to withhold the report, and Elliott agreed. When word 
of the cabal leaked out over cocktails, the land harvest was moderated/ 1 But pelagic seal¬ 
ing went full bore and the fur-seal herd continued its precipitous decline. 

As postulated by one author, Goff was quietly relieved of his position because of his 
initial whistle-blowing, which cost the NACC its right to harvest up to 100,000 seals per 
annum. 

One lost patronage skirmish concerned his [Nathan’s] younger brother, Charles J. Goff, 
who had been appointed as a Treasury agent to the Alaskan seal fisheries in 1890 [1889] by 
Secretary of the Treasury William Windom. In May, 1891, after only one [two] season[s] he 
was removed, allegedly at the behest of the North American Commercial Company, whose 
wrath he had incurred by recommending a cessation of the taking of seals for one year. 72 

Charles Goff’s efforts were not lost on the news media. From the New York Times in 
May 1891: 

TO EXTERMINATE THE SEALS 

Secretary Foster who appears to have taken advice about the sealing question from 
interested parties about as readily as he adopted vagaries of the Director of the Mint, 

Leech, on the financial situation, has followed the advice of the North American 
Commercial Company to displace Special Agent Goff from the supervision of the sealing 


277 




Pribilof Islands: The People 



iKNKKAL NATHAN GOTF. LL. l>. 


General Nathan Goff. ("Appleton’s Annual 
Cyclopaedia and Register of Important 
Events of the Year 1889.,) 


industry, and has appointed Mr. J. Stanley-Brown 
to go to the islands as his “own man.” Charles J. 
Goff is the brother of the Hon. Nathan Goff of 
West Virginia. He appears to have been honest 
and he was brave enough to stop the killing of the 
seals by the leases [lessees] before they had taken 
the number allowed to be killed under the lease, 
because he saw that there were not [sufficient] 
“killable” seals on the ground to justify the attempt 
and he considered that the discretion reposed to 
him by the department ought to be exercised to 
reduce the quota. He reported the seals rapidly 
diminishing, that young seals were being driven 
and redrivin [sic] over the hauling grounds, and 
that under-sized seals were being killed to make up 
the catch, and concluded that, “It is but a question 
of a few years, unless immediately attended to, 
before the seal question of the Pribilof group of 
islands will be a thing of the past.” 


Notwithstanding the fact that the seals were looked 
upon as inexhaustible and were officially reported to be increasing as late as 1888, the time 
has suddenly come when experiment and imagination must cease and the truth be told. But 
the friends of Mr. Blaine, for whom he has seen fit to discourage the promised agreement 
with Great Britain do not love the truth when it gets in their way. They discredited the Goff 
report. The man who was referred to by Mr. Goff as having made the 1888 report that the 
seals were increasing was Mr. George Tingle, who was then Special Agent of the Treasury. 
His report was very acceptable to the Alaska Company, but it has proved troublesome to 
the State Department, for the British people interested in poaching have repeatedly thrown 
Tingle’s report in the face of the Secretary of State to answer his suggestions about the 
importance of a protective agreement. 


Mr. Tingle is now Superintendent of the North American Commercial Company and 
Mr. Blaine’s friends, the lessees, are now quoting his flattering report of the condition of 
the rookeries in 1890 to justify Mr. Blaine in refusing to make an arrangement for a close 
season. Mr. Goff made a report that agrees with the report of Prof. Elliott, the substance of 
which is printed in THE TIMES of this morning. Being convinced, from the fact that nearly 
all the young bull seals had disappeared, that there would be a serious diminution of the 
number of young seals at the rookeries this season, and a more noticeable falling off next 
season, he recommended that there be no killing of seals at the islands and in the waters of 
Bering Sea for an indefinite number of years, and that nature be allowed to take her course 
in re-establishing the former condition of the rookeries. 


... Mr. Brown, who has been picked out by Elkins and his friends to go to Alaska in a 
revenue cutter to look at the rookeries, will probably be taken in hand by Mr. George R. 
Tingle, who for reasons reported that the seals were increasing in spite of all the assaults 
upon them, and he will make a report different from that made by Mr. Goff, which has 
displeased the Treasury, Mr. Elkins, Mr. Blaine, and his friends. Mr. Brown does not know 
anything about seals. Mr. Elliott, whose report Mr. Blaine has suppressed, and to whom 
some one near Mr. Blaine seems to have indulged in persistent lying for several months, 
is devoted to the subject and has no object in misrepresenting the true situation of affairs. 
He says that there has been no thought of taking the Russians into the agreement, for the 
reason that there is no occasion to do so. The poachers were all Americans or British, and 
some times Americans under the British flag, and that the co-operation of Great Britain 
and the United States to stop sealing would stop it all in Bering Sea, except at the Russian 
grounds under lease. 


278 





Biographies G ♦ Goff - Gray 


As soon as the North American Commercial Company’s vessel has left Sitka and the 
“Free-for-all” seal season has become inevitable, it is probable that Mr. Blaine will be heard 
shouting lustily in condemnation of the British refusal to agree to a close season. He will 
be fully aware that it will be too late to do anything then to stop the indiscriminate killing 
and particularly to stop the killing by the lessees of seals that ought to be protected if the 
species is to be perpetuated. Prof. Elliott says that while the slaughter by the poachers is 
great, it is not so destructive of possible future seals as the legalized killing on the Pribilof 
Islands. The suggestion thrown out by Mr. Blaine that the interference of the Treasury in 
the business of the lessees may involve the Government in suits for damages is one of the 
arguments put forward in all of the Blaine versions of this story, and seems to have been in 
the mind of Mr. Tingle when he protested last July against the stopping by Mr. Goff of the 
slaughter of small seals. 73 

However, Charles Goff’s courageous efforts appeared then to drop below the radar of 
recognition until eminent fur-seal biologist Victor B. Scheffer commented in 1984: 

Thus Goff, with Elliott’s blessing, pioneered in 1890 the practice of closing the sealing 
season when field conditions warrant it, in advance of a prescribed date." 4 


Gray, Nicolas ( 1861 - 1910 +) 

Teacher, Alaska Commercial Company, St. Paul Island, 1883-1890 
Clerk, Storekeeper, Alaska Commercial Company, Unalaska, 1890-1906+ 


Genealogy 

Nicolas Gray was born during March 1861 in 
Russia. Both of his parents were of Russian de¬ 
scent. Gray’s wife, Maria (surname unknown), 
was born in Alaska in January 1884 to a German 
father and Alaskan mother. 5 

Biography 

Nicolas Gray emigrated from Russia to America 
in 1874 and settled in San Francisco, California. 
He first traveled to Unalaska, Alaska, from San 
Francisco in May of 1880, as a teacher in the 
employ of the Alaska Commercial Company. In 
1883, the company transferred Gray to St. Paul 
Island, where he remained as a schoolteacher 
until the spring of 1890; at that time the company 
sent him back to Unalaska to work as a clerk and 
storekeeper. 

In 1887, Nicholas Gray helped form and lead 
a St. Paul Island band, and in 1896, he formed a 
brass band at Unalaska. He worked as a clerk for 
the Alaska Commercial Company until at least 
1906. 





Nicolas Gray, teacher on St. Paul Island, 
circa 1880s. (Alaska State Library, 
Michael Z. Vinokouroff Photograph Coll., 
P243-2-181.) 


279 










Pribilof Islands: The People 


The U.S. Census for 1910 showed Gray living in San Francisco at the same residence 
as 89-year-old Eugene Cox, former vice-president of the North American Commercial 
Company. 76 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Nicolas Gray arrived at St. Paul Island aboard the steamer St. Paul on May 31, 1883, 
as the Alaska Commercial Company’s new teacher for the island children, replacing a 
Mr. Atkins. 77 Gray was fully bilingual in Russian and English and was considered a good 
teacher, according to the government agents, who reported that the children loved him. 

School commenced today [September 3, 1883] with 54 children in attendance 14 boys and 
40 girls. At the request of the Priest, Fridays of each week [are] to be devoted to teaching 
the Russian language by some one selected by the Priest. Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, 
and Thursdays are for teaching the English language five hours each day: three hours in the 
forenoon and two hours in the afternoon; instead of two hours each day for five days in the 
week as has been the custom heretofore. 78 

The school closed today [May 8, 1884]. The closing exercises were witnessed by the 
Treasury Agent, A.C. Co’s. Agent, the resident, the priest, George Butrin [Aleut Chief] 
and Mrs. Melovedoff. The exercises consisted of reading, recitations of poetry and a few 
questions in geography. The reading was very good indeed with the exception of one or 
two of the older scholars, but little attention was paid to the pauses, was read very rapidly. 

The questions in geography were all answered satisfactorily, and without hesitation. The 
recitations in poetry were good, without prompting but very indistinct. There is a marked 
improvement in the school in the lessons and in the confidence of the children in reciting. 79 

As years progressed, so did the island children under Gray’s instruction. An 1887 
entry in the Agent’s Log recognized Gray’s accomplishments. 

There has been a large improvement with the school this term; the condition of the 
children as to cleanliness, promptness in attending, the order and discipline; but very 
seldom a pupil has been absent or tardy without a good and sufficient cause; to all 
appearance it has been a pleasure to the children to be in the schoolroom with their 
teacher. Mr. Gray has been very much interested in his school and to him large credit is due 
for the prosperous condition of the school; he appears to have the confidence and love of 
all the children, prompt in every duty as a teacher, kind and courteous to all and he has the 
confidence and love of all his scholars and from love and respect they seem to obey; should 
Mr. Gray continue to be their teacher, not many years will pass before some of them will be 
able to teach their own school. 80 

An entry in the 1887 log also reported the outstanding introduction of the St. Paul 
Island Band in the fall of that year. 

During the fall of 1887 and 1888, the following named persons paid the amounts set 
opposite their names to Mr. N. Gray for the purchasing of several musical instruments and 
music for a band for the Island of St. Paul. Said instruments and music to remain upon 
this island and any of the natives that wish to play can do so. Also any of the white people 
and the instruments are the property of the band whoever they may be from time to time 
composed of native and any of the white people who come to use them. 


280 





Biographies G ♦ Gray 


5 



St. Paul Island, string band: 1. Neon Mandregan, 2. Karp Buterin, 3. Simeon Melovidov, 4. Alex 
Hanson, 5. Nicolas Gray, 6. Anton Melovidov. (Alaska State Library, Grey & Hereford Photograph 
Coll., PI 85-18.) 


G.R. Tingle $20.00; 

J.P. Manchester $17.50; 

N. Gray $12.50; 

J. Sloss $10.00; 

E. Hughs $10.00; 

Alex Hanson $7.70; 
Simeon Mellovidoff $2.50; 
Peter Krukoff $7.50; 
George Emanoff $2.50 


C.L. Fowler $10.00; 
W.C. Allis $12.50; 

C. C. Mead $5.00; 

D. Webster $5.00; 

Capt. Hayes $5.00; 

F. Gilman $4.92; 

Karp Bouterin $2.50; 
Neon Tetoff $7.50; 
Neon Mandrigin $2.50. 


J.C. Redpath $10.00; 

Dr. W.S. Hereford $12.50; 
Dr. H.H. McIntyre $20.00; 
Dr. Noyes $5.00; 

John Fratis $5.00; 

Anton Mellovidoff $2.50; 
Nicoli Krukoff $7.50 
James Crow $2.50; 


In addition Mr. Manchester donated the following: one musical dictionary, one book 
"Parlor Organ Treasury,” one book "Minstrel Songs.” 


... The following is the list of Band Property: One double bass, one violin cello, one viola, 
one cornet, one bass drum, one tenor drum, two tambourines, one triangle, one set of 
bones, one xylophone, six music stands, method for each instruments ... an abundance of 
music, bass and cello strings, music paper, rosin, extra bridges, one cornet. 81 

The St. Paul Island band was popular with the community and played regularly, on 
holidays, birthdays, name-day celebrations, and more. 


281 


















Village dance. Simeon Melovidov and wife (left), Nicholas Gray (right), 1890. (NAA, Arctic: Aleut 
series, lot 24, 1461500.) 


282 








Biographies G ♦ Notes 


1 Betty A. Lindsay and John A. Lindsay, Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Genealogy and Census, 186, 198, 221, 
and 290. 

2 Ibid. 

3 Ibid., 9. 

4 Ibid., 253 and 296. 

5 Ibid., 199 and 238. 

6 Ibid., 330. 

7 St. George Island Agent’s Log, June 28, 1893, 290. 

8 University of Notre Dame Archive, Hesburgh Library, Notre Dame, IN, correspondence with Betty 
A. Lindsay, Nov. 24, 2003. William Gavitt and his brother John both attended Notre Dame; John 
entered Sept. 5, 1867, at age 16, and both brothers listed John Reitz as their guardian. 

9 Joseph P. Elliott, A History of Evansville and Vanderburgh County, Indiana (Evansville, IN: Keller, 
1897), 378-82; University of Notre Dame Archive, Hesburgh Library, Notre Dame, IN, correspon¬ 
dence with Betty A. Lindsay, Nov. 24, 2003. 

10 Elliott, A History of Evansville, 378-82. 

11 U.S. Congress, House, “Report from the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries of the House 
of Representatives,” in The Fur-Seal and Other Fisheries of Alaska: Investigation of the Fur-Seal and 
Other Fisheries of Alaska. 50th Cong., 2nd sess., H. Rep. no. 3883 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1889), 1. 

12 Ibid., 179-207. 

13 Ibid., 180. 

14 Ibid., 283-5; “The Alaska Charges,” New York Times, Jan. 12, 1889, 3; and “The Alaskan Inquiry,” 

New York Times, Jan. 8, 1889, 6. It appears that author Dorothy Knee Jones relied heavily on U.S. 
Congress, House, H. Rep. no. 3883 to support many of her allegations regarding government 
malfeasance and abuse of the Aleuts in her A Century of Servitude: Pribilof Aleuts under U.S. Rule 
(Washington, DC: Univ. Press of America). The H.R. no. 3883 report dealt with similar allegations, 
but only during Gavitt’s year at St. George Island (May 1887 through Aug. 1888), while Jones held 
it up as evidence for nearly a century of events. In the 1940s, author and Aleut civil-rights advocate 
Fredericka Martin characterized Agent Tingle as an “arrogant” and "pompous and egoistical man” 
who commonly maligned the Natives (Fredericka Martin Collection, Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, 
Univ. of Fairbanks). 

15 The New York Times article “Abuses in Alaska” writing style suggests that “Ryan” was the “witness” 
cited in the quote, but in actuality it may have meant “Gavitt.” 

16 “Abuses in Alaska,” New York Times, Dec. 20, 1888. 

17 Richard Henry Geoghegan and Fredericka I. Martin, The Aleut Language: The Elements of Aleut 
Grammar with a Dictionary in Two Parts Containing Basic Vocabularies of Aleut and English 
(Washington, DC: Department of the Interior, 1944), 4-5. 

18 Donald J. Orth, Dictionary of Alaska Place Names, Geological Survey Paper 567 (Washington, DC: 
GPO, 1967), 14. 

19 Geoghegan and Martin, The Aleut Language, 4-5. 

20 Richard Geoghegan served as a court reporter for U.S. District Judge James Wickersham (Orth, 
Dictionary, 14). 

21 Possibly referring to the Kambojas, a Kshatriya tribe of Iron Age India, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
Kambojas (accessed May 10, 2009). 

22 Geoghegan and Martin, The Aleut Language, 5. 

23 Ibid. 

24 Geoghegan and Martin, The Aleut Language, 7. The last paragraph of their Introduction can be read 
in this book’s Introduction. 

25 Birth and death dates obtained from Gill’s gravestone on St. Paul Island; the U.S. Census, 1860, 
Brooklyn, Kings County, NY, 96, provided approximate dates. Also see, St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 
Oct. 22, 1876, 465-7. 

26 D. W. Prowse, History of Newfoundland From the English, Colonial, and Foreign Records (London: 
Macmillan, 1895), 241 and 333; and John A. Schutz, Legislators of the Massachusetts General Court, 
1691-1780: A Biographical Dictionary (Boston: Northeastern Univ. Press, 1997), 408-9. 

27 James Darrell Gill fonds [ “fonds” is a term used in Canada for an archival unit], Administrative 
History/Biographical Sketch, Archives Canada, cain no. 206345, http://www.archivescanada.ca/ 
english (accessed Mar. 12, 2007). 


283 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


28 “Last Will and Testament of Caroline E. Gill,” Newfoundland Will and Probate Books, Avalon South 
Region, vol. 12, 1923, 306-8. Note: “Sitka was the See City of the Episcopal Missionary District of 
Alaska ... Peter Trimble Rowe (1856-1942) was made Episcopal Bishop of Alaska in 1895,” accord¬ 
ing to “History of St. Peter’s by-the-Sea,” http://www.southeastseafarer.org/stpeters.html (accessed 
Mar. 14, 2007). While only the Russian Orthodox Church had and has any standing on St. Paul 
Island, Gill’s gravesite remains under good maintenance by the Orthodox Church as of 2008. 

29 T. S. Palmer, “In Memoriam: Theodore Nicholas Gill,” The Auk: A Quarterly Journal of Ornithology 
32, no. 4 (Oct. 1915), 391-405; “United States Government 1893, United States Fish Commission,” 
http://www.usgennet.org/usa/topic/preservation/gov/labor.htm (accessed Mar. 14, 2007); and U.S. 
Government 1895-1896, http://www.worldstatesmen.org/USA_govt.html (accessed Mar. 14, 2007). 

30 “A History of NOAA,” http://www.history.noaa.gov/legacy/noaahistory_5.html (accessed Dec. 1, 
2005). The number of stations, i.e. 22, was the number of signal service stations in 1870. We did not 
determine whether this was the same number of stations specific to the year 1876. 

31 “Weather Reckonings,” New York Times, May 5, 1876, 4; and “By act of Congress, approved June 10, 
1872, the Signal Service was charged with the duty of providing such stations, signals, and reports as 
might be found necessary for extending its research in the interest of agriciilture [sic],” http://www. 
archive.org/stream/historyofsignalsOOunitrich/historyofsignalsOOunitrich_djvu.txt (accessed May 
23, 2009). 

32 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, May 20, 1876, 412. 

33 Ibid., 1876, 465-7. 

34 Ibid., 1885, 364 (Apr. 10 and 21). 

35 Ibid., May 29, 1885, 366. 

36 Ibid., June 8, 1885, 367. 

37 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, convened at Paris 
under the Treaty between the United States of America and Great Britain, concluded at Washington 
February 29, 1892, for the determination of questions between the two governments concerning the 
jurisdictional rights of the United States in the waters of Bering Sea, vol. 3, (Washington, DC: GPO, 
1895), 109. 

38 Harrison County Genealogical Society, http://www.dttwv01.org/hcgs/index.htm (accessed Feb. 3, 
2004). Clarksburg’s National Historic Site of Waldomore was built in 1839 by Waldo Potter Goff. 

The property was left to the city in 1930 by the will of May Goff Lowndes, sister to Charles J. Goff, 
“for library and museum purposes by the terms of her will,” Charleston Daily Mail, Sept. 15, 1930. 

39 Obituary of Charles Goff, Washington Post, Jan. 10, 1905, 3; and G. Wayne Smith, Nathan Goff Jr.: A 
Biography (Charleston, WV: Education Foundation, 1959), 348. 

40 Smith, Nathan Goff Jr., 1. 

41 Ibid., 6. 

42 Civil War Revised Index, image #1005, May 21, 1903, application no. 1300277, Goff, Charles J., 
Ancestry.com. 

43 NARAfilmno. T9-1403, 94-95. 

44 Ibid., T9-1403, 205C. 

45 Ibid., T9-1403, 351. 

46 Information from the Acts of the West Virginia Legislature regarding many of Charles Goff’s busi¬ 
ness ventures can be found in the West Virginia Memory Project history timeline http://www. 
wvculture.org/history/wvmemory/timelinedetail (accessed January 9, 2004). 

47 Smith, Nathan Goff Jr., 220. 

48 Ibid., 214. 

49 Ibid. H. H. McIntyre was Hugh Henry McIntyre, former superintendent of the Alaska Commercial 
Company for the Pribilof Islands, 1870-90. Charles J. Goff made his acquaintance while serving as 
Treasury agent on St. Paul Island in 1889. 

50 West Virginia Memory Project history timeline, http://www.wvculture.org/history/wvmemory/ 
timelinedetail (accessed January 9, 2004). 

51 Smith, Nathan Goff Jr., 215. 

52 “Captain Goff’s Death,” Clarksburg Telegram, Jan. 9, 1905; special acknowledgement to David 
Houchin, Clarksburg-Harrison Public Library, for providing photographs and research materials on 
the Goff family. 

53 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 111-2. 


284 



Biographies G ♦ Notes 


54 Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (Chicago: G. & C. Merriam, 1971), 608. 

55 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries of Alaska and General 
Resources of Alaska, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1898), 215. Also published as U.S. Congress, 
House, 1898, 55th Congress, 1st sess., H. Doc. no. 92, vol. 1. Washington, DC: GPO. 

56 Ibid., 202. 

57 Ibid., 201. 

58 Ibid., 215. 

59 U.S. Congress, House, Appendix A to Hearings Before the Committee on Expenditures in the 
Department of Commerce and Labor, House Resolution No. 73, To Investigate The Fur-Seal Industry 
of Alaska, 62nd Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, DC: GPO, 1911), 7-8. The reporting of the estimated 
numbers of fur seals for the period 1872-74 and each of the years 1890 through 1903 were present¬ 
ed by letter by Henry W. Elliott to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor on Jan. 8, 1904. Elliott also 
cited the documentation for each of the estimates. Victor B. Scheffer, Clifford H. Fiscus, and Ethel 

I. Todd, History of Scientific Study and Management of the Alaskan Fur Seal, Callorhinus ursinus, 
1786-1964, NOAA Tech. Rep. NMFS SSRF-780 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1984), discussed the size 
of the fur-seal herd over the years until 1911. They stated that the 1911 estimate of 123,600 seals 
(the lowest number on record) was probably too low, as a more reliable census taken during 1912 
suggested the herd size was closer to 200,000 (p. 20). Still, the 123,600 to 200,000 estimate repre¬ 
sented the low point of the fur-seal population in the Pribilof Islands during the American period of 
management. 

60 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div.,Seal and Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1, 228-9. 

61 Ibid., 230-1. 

62 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1890, 222 and 233. 

63 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1, 233. 

64 Ibid., 260. 

65 Ibid., 242-3. 

66 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1, 220. The reader is 
cautioned about taking too seriously "absolute” numbers provided in reports, books, etc. regarding 
the Seal Islands, especially in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For example, according 
to U.S. Congress, Senate, Revenue from Rental of the Seal Islands of Alaska, 54th Cong., 2nd sess., S. 
Doc. no. 81 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1897), 5, the number of seals killed on the Pribilof Islands was 
102,617 in 1889. 

67 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1, 233. 

68 Ibid., 235. 

69 Ibid., 236. 

70 Smith, Nathan Goff Jr., 233. 

71 Charles S. Campbell Jr., “The Anglo-American Crisis in the Bering Sea, 1890-1891,” in Alaska and 
its History, ed. Morgan B. Sherwood (Seattle: Univ. Washington Press, 1967), 331-5. 

72 Smith, Nathan Goff Jr., 355. 

73 "To Exterminate the Seals,” New York Times, May 1, 1891, 2. 

74 Scheffer et al., History of Scientific Study, 10. 

75 U.S. Census, 1900, Unalaska (town), Alaska, Southern District, 16. 

76 Raymond L. Hudson, Family After All: Alaska’s Jesse Lee Home, vol. 1 (Unalaska, 1889-1925) 
(Walnut Creek, CA: Hardscratch, 2007), 17, 38, 83, and 165; St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1883, 298; 
1887, 156-7; and U.S. Census, 1900, Unalaska (town), Alaska, Southern District, 16. 

77 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1883, May 31, 298. 

78 Ibid., Sept. 3, 1883, 311. 

79 Ibid., May 8, 1884, 337. 

80 Ibid., Apr. 28, 1887, 478. 

81 Ibid., 1889, 157-8. 


285 




y he |ntehioi\ of ^ukah's |3arrabakie. 

Native's House , Si. Pint's Village—July 28, 1873. 


The Interior of Lukah’s Barrabakie. Native’s House, St. Paul’s Village—July 28, 1873. Henry 
Wood Elliott, Report on the Prybilov Group, or Seal Islands of Alaska, 1873. 



Capturing J^UFy JSeals. 

Natives running in between them and the water\ turning them back upon the land—English Pay , 
St. Paul's Island—June 10, 1872. 


Capturing Fur Seals. Natives Running in between them and the Water, Turning them back 
upon the Land—English Bay, St. Paul’s Island—June 10, 1872. Henry Wood Elliott, Report 
on the Prybilov Group, or Seal Islands of Alaska, 1873. 


286 






























Hahn, Walter L. ( 1879 - 1911 ) 

Scientific Assistant, Naturalist, U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, St. Paul Island, 1910 
Genealogy 

Walter L. Hahn was born at Bascom, Indiana, on May 20, 1879, to German immigrant 
parents. Walter Hahn married schoolteacher Alta F. Ives on June 14, 1910, at South Bend, 
St. Joseph County, Indiana. Walter Hahn died at St. Paul Island on May 31, 1911; Alta 
Hahn left the islands for Portage, Indiana, where she became a school principal . 1 

Biographical Sketch 

Walter Hahn was educated in Indiana schools. He graduated in 1903 from Indiana 
University with an AB degree and took a position as an aide for the U.S. National Museum. 
He became a scientific assistant for the Department of Agriculture in 1905, and in 1908, 
he received a PhD in zoology from Indiana University. Thereafter, he served as a scientific 
assistant in the Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of Fisheries. Immediately 
before his assignment as naturalist on the Pribilof Islands, Hahn taught biology at the 
State Normal School in Springfield, South Dakota . 2 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Dr. Walter L. Hahn was the first full-time naturalist stationed on the Seal Islands. The 
U.S. government created the naturalist position when it assumed full management and 
administrative responsibilities following the expiration of the final twenty-year lease to 
North American Commercial Company on May 1,1910. Hahn’s annual salary was $3,000. 

Dr. Hahn entered upon his duties as naturalist in the fall of 1910. His training, wide field 
experience, and well-known ability and enthusiasm as a zoologist and practical business 
man were assurance that his appointment to the position of naturalist, just established, 
would prove a wise selection. His report, written up to the very day of his death, shows that 


287 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


he possessed a remarkably clear understanding of the problems with which he had to deal. 

Arriving at the islands August 23, 1910, he made daily observation and study of the seals 
and foxes throughout the fall, winter, and spring. He also gave attention to the birds and 
other animals on and about the islands, to the plants, and to meteorological phenomena, 
and gave much thought to the local educational problems and the intellectual and moral 
well-being of the natives, working out a system of education such as he believed best 
adapted to their needs. 3 

What began as a pleasant outing one day just months after his arrival on the island 
ended in the deaths of Walter Hahn and a companion. 

On May 31, 1911, a distressing accident occurred on St. Paul Island. Dr. Harry D. 

Chichester, assistant agent, and Dr. Walter L. Hahn, the naturalist on the seal islands, with 
their wives and a native, Neon Tetof [sic], while sailing on the lagoon were unable to put 
about successfully in the high wind and by the capsizing of their boat were exposed to the 
ice-cold water for more than an hour. All were alive when rescued, and Mrs. Chichester 
and Mrs. Hahn, by the diligent efforts of the physician were resuscitated. The native also 
survived, but Dr. Chichester and Dr. Hahn, necessarily left without medical attention for a 
time, succumbed to the effects of the exposure. 4 

Additional details about the accident are provided in the Chichester and Neon Tetoff 
biographies. 


Hajny, Richard ( 1921 - 2004 ) 

Resident Biologist, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, St. 
Paul Island, 1964-1970 

Genealogy 

Richard Hajny was born on May 20, 1921, in Fairfield, Nebraska, to Frank Willard Hajny 
and Mary B. (Mazour) Hajny. Richard met nurse Dixie Alene West in Wrangell, Alaska, 
where they married on May 26, 1948 at St. Rose of Lima Church. 5 Richard and Dixie 
Hajny raised three children on St. Paul Island: Francis (Frank), Phyllis, and Matthew. 
Richard Hajny died in Seattle on February 8, 2004. Dixie Hajny died on April 18, 2006. 

Biographical Sketch 

Richard Hajny first traveled to Alaska in 1939 while serving with the U.S. Coast Guard in 
Southeast Alaska. After WWII, he attended Oregon State University and worked sum¬ 
mers as a research biologist in the Aleutians for the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. On 
St. Paul Island, his wife, Dixie, served the community in her capacity as a registered nurse 
and even, when the need arose, as the island’s doctor. Their daughter, Phyllis, returned to 
St. Paul Island during adulthood and married Simeon Swetzof, who is (in 2008) Mayor 
of the City of St. Paul. Phyllis became active in civic affairs and serves as St. Paul City 
Clerk. 6 


288 






Biographies H ♦ Hahn - Hajny 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

Richard "Dick” Hajny arrived in the Pribilofs in 
1964 and served as the Bureau of Commercial 
Fisheries’ first resident biologist on the islands; 
his job was to record the movements of reindeer, 
foxes and seals. Up to that time the resident man¬ 
agers, although biologists, did not undertake any 
scientific endeavors. Hajny resided on St. Paul 
Island from 1964 until August 1967, when his 
position was relocated to Seattle. However, he 
continued to work summers in the Pribilofs and 
spent the off-season in the Seattle office. In 1966, 
he was instrumental in the conversion of seal- 
pelt blubbering from manual labor to mechani¬ 
cal means. The increase in efficiency led to lower 
production cost, but at the expense of jobs, al¬ 
though many of the job losses affected only those 
who came to the islands solely for employment 
during the summer seal harvest. Hajny resided in 
the island community during the passage of the 
Fur-Seal Act of 1966. He served as biologist until 
his retirement in 1970. 7 


On October 3, 1970, just before Hajny’s re¬ 
tirement, the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries was 
renamed the National Marine Fisheries Service, 
and transferred from the Department of the 
Interior to the Department of Commerce ,within 
Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration. 


Although retired from government service, 

Richard and Dixie Hajny remained involved 
with the Pribilof Islands. Together they returned 
to provide wildlife presentations and served as 
guides to summer tour groups. Richard Hajny 
was recognized for his ivory craftsmanship. 8 In 2008, the family of Richard and Dixie 
Hajny “cast their ashes over Southwest Point so that they may remain forever on St. Paul 
Island.” 9 


Matt and father Richard Hajny, St. 

George Island, September 1964. (Courtesy 
Phyllis Swetzof.) 




Dixie and Richard Hajny, circa 1960. 
(Photo: Robert L. Ball. Courtesy Phyllis 
Swetzof.) 




289 














Pribilof Islands: The People 


Haley, George and Cora ( 1870-1954 and 1872 - 1931 ) 

Teachers, U.S. Department of Commerce, St. George Island, 1914-1915 

Genealogy 

George Haley was born November 28, 1870, to 
stonemason William Smith Haley and Lucinda Ellen 
(Gray) Haley of Brownfield, Maine. On February 26, 
1906, George married Cora M. Giles in Brownfield, 
Maine. Cora, born February 19, 1872, was the daugh¬ 
ter of Mary E. (Snow) Giles and Loring R. Giles, a 
Brownfield dry goods merchant. As newlyweds, 
George and Cora traveled to Japan just two weeks 
before the San Francisco earthquake in April 1906. 
Cora Haley passed away in Berkeley, California, 
on December 4, 1931. 10 George Haley died at San 
Francisco in 1954. 

Biographical Sketch 

George Haley graduated in 1891 from Fryeburg 
Academy, Fryeburg, Maine.He earned a Bachelor of 
Science degree in 1911 from the University of Maine 
and in 1928 a Doctor of Philosophy in biology from 
the University of San Francisco (St. Ignatius College). 
He would later head the university’s biology depart¬ 
ment. Cora Giles was a normal school graduate and 
became a teacher. 11 

George Haley was brought up on a farm where he developed the lifetime love for 
flora and fauna that ultimately made him famous on several continents. Dr. Whitman G. 
Stickney, a childhood cohort, wrote, “He was a born teacher whose influence extended 
far beyond the classroom ... everywhere he went he imparted information to young and 
old, with a contagious enthusiasm.” 12 Dr. Haley also taught English and mathematics at 
the Japanese Naval College, Tokyo. 13 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

George and Cora Haley succeeded G Dallas Hanna and his wife as teachers on St. George 
Island, beginning September 26, 1914. George Haley taught the senior students while 
Cora worked with those of kindergarten age (Junior School), as well as teaching older 
girls in sewing classes. Although the school had recently been enlarged and remodeled 
when the Haleys began teaching, it remained a one-room schoolhouse. A strong empha¬ 
sis was placed upon the teaching of English, a language still not widely accepted by the 
Native communities in the Pribilofs thirty-eight years after cession from Russia. 


St. Paul Island, 1915-1920 



George Haley, 1926. (Nadia Lavrova, 
San Francisco Examiner, Dec. 26, 
1926.) 


290 











Biographies H ♦ Haley 


The Haleys wrote a long report at the end of 
the school year on May 26, 1915. Only excerpts 
made it into the agency’s annual report, and the 
even shorter excerpts given here are meant as 
representations of their devotion to teaching. 
Their report attempted to communicate their 
perception of the educational shortfalls on the 
island along with their apparently sincere at¬ 
tempts to overcome them. 


One-room junior (kindergarten) school- 
house, St. Paul Island, November 1914. 
(NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage. 
Photo: G Dallas Hanna. RG 22, U.S. 
Bureau of Fisheries, 1907-1921.) 


One of the greatest obstacles in the progress of 
the pupils here is the fact that they do not speak 
English. With one or two exceptions, English 
is spoken in none of the homes, so when the 
child comes to school at the age of six years 
his vocabulary is usually limited to the words, 

“good-by,” “yes,” and “no” It is not difficult for a 
child to acquire a working knowledge of a foreign 
tongue under the proper conditions. Many of the 

children of the foreign-born citizens of the United States hear only their native tongue in 
their homes; but when they enter the public schools not only the language of the school but 
the language of the playground is English, and the playground is where the child gets the 
greater part of his practice in speaking. It is in free conversation that one learns to think in 
a foreign tongue. Such children usually are desirous of speaking English—it may be with 
no higher motive than because “the others do”—and the parents encourage progress in 
English, feeling that whatever line of work the children will follow after leaving school it 
will be an aid in their advancement. Here the conditions are very different—the medium 
of communication of the playground is Aleut, so as soon as the threshold of the school 
building is passed there is no attempt to speak English. Then apparently the parents feel no 
interest in their children speaking English. It may be that they see no advantage in it. 



... Objects familiar to the children and animal and plant life of the island have been made 
subjects of the language lessons both for oral and written work. Some games have been 
taught the children in the hope that the English words used would become common in 
their undirected plays. When the weather permitted, a short walk was a part of the daily 
program for the little ones, during which time an endeavor was always made that the 
conversation should be in English, thus names of out-of-door objects and actions have been 
acquired without a conscious effort. During the last of the spring months, nature lessons 
have been given, not only that the children might have some knowledge of animals and 
plants of the island but also as a means of cultivating the power of observation. 14 

The Haleys remained on St. George Island for one school year before transferring to 
St. Paul Island, where George taught school for five more years and Cora for four. The 
agent’s annual report for the 1915-16 school year on St. Paul commended the Haleys’ 
educational progress. 


Special effort was made to have the children speak and read English and to think in that 
language, and much ingenuity was displayed by the teachers in their efforts to secure the 
desired results. Attention was given to the health of the pupils and gymnastics were made 
a part of the regular program. Music, games, and nature-study work were interspersed 
with the more formal phases of school routine. The increased facility in the use of English 
on the part of the children, and the marked improvement in their conduct and general 
appearance, have been made the subject of very favorable comment. 15 


291 








Pribilof Islands: The People 

Dr. Haley was also an avid naturalist who endeavored to understand the Seal Islands’ 
natural history. The following excerpts were taken from the field notes of Dr. George 
Haley as obtained from the Special Collections of the California Academy of Sciences. 
He gathered these notes while holding his teaching position on the Pribilof Islands. In 
his notes, Dr. Haley did not italicize or underline species names and several species were 
either misspelled or incorrectly identified. 

FIELD NOTES ON THE COMMON PLANTS 
OF THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS 

On the treeless slopes of the Pribilof Islands, spring 
and autumn clasp hands. When the drift ice passes 
away, the fogs surround the hills and valleys. Dr. 

C.H. Merriman, of the Bering Sea Commissioners, 
gives a concise description of the natural features. 

.. .“In summer the islands are almost constantly 
enveloped in fog. The atmosphere is saturated (the 
wet and dry bulbs registering the same) and the 
temperature is uniformly low, the thermometer 
ranging from 45 to 48 degrees F. or rarely to 50 
degrees F.” 

The sand dunes abound with Cochlearia 
officinalis, Arenaria peploides, Lathrus maritinus 
[sic], Mertensia maritina [sic] and one species 
of Polemonium. On the cliffs are found Draba 
hirta, Arabis ambigua, Sagina linnaei, and 
Saxifraga bracteata. Near the villages will be 
found Ranunculus hyperboreus, Ranunculus 
reptans (in ponds) and Chrysanthemum articum 
(edge of bogs). In the bogs may be found Rubus 
chamaemorus, Pedicularis sudetica, and Palasites 
[sic] frigida. On the grassy slopes of the uplands 
are found the mats of Silene acaulis, Arenaria 
macrocaspa [sic] Pursh, and Eritrichium 
chamissonis. 

The yellow acres of poppies and blue valleys of lupines are characteristic of the landscape. 

The heaths are pink with the figworts, Pedicularis langsdorfii, and blue patches of blue bells 
abound. The “Poochka” (Umbelliferae) is the largest of any plant on the islands, the foxes 
can hide in the masses of vegetation. The natives eat the stalks early in the spring. 

The plants are in a constant dilemma; to be conspicuous to the insects in order to be 
fertilized; to be inconspicuous in raising their heads in the face of wind and weather. Hence, 
the brilliant masses of color and the low mats of vegetation. 

The indigenous species have, as a rule, minute seeds. Because of their small size they might 
have been carried on the feet of aquatic birds or in their alimentary canals. The drift ice 
in winter and the high winds would possibly carry other seeds. It is significant that a new 
volcanic island (Bogoslof) south of the Pribilofs, had some grass and a few primroses only 
three years after being raised above the water. 

An iris (Iris setosa) has recently been found near the site of the old Russian village, west 
of North Rookery, St. George and the geranium at Whitney Pond, St. Paul may have been 
introduced from Unalaska where both species are abundant. Since the above writing, the 
writer has been on St. Paul again (1925) and found G. erianthum growing abundantly on 
north slope of Lake Hill. 



Cliff top above Kitovi Rookery, St. Paul 
Island, July 1971. Roy Hurd (left) and 
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Maurice 
H. Stans (right). (NARA Pacific Alaska 
Region, Anchorage. Administrative 
Correspondence, ca. 1888-1987. RG 22- 
95-ADMC-l 131.) 


292 










Biographies H ♦ Haley 


George Haley ended his service in the island schools at the close of the 1920 school 
year. lb Cora Haley resigned from teaching on St. Paul Island in 1919 and spent the early 
part of 1920 with her mother and brother in Brownfield, Maine, as noted in the 1920 U.S. 
Census. 

When Mrs. Haley was dying in 1931, she asked that she be buried on far off St. Paul’s Island 
of the Pribilofs among the rocks they both loved so much. Mrs. Haley’s ashes were flown 
to St. Paul Island where they were inurned deep in a rock crevice close to the shore where 
wind-lashed waves will wash back and forth until an H-bomb war possibly changes the flow 
of tides. 17 

Sorrowful natives, some her former students, conducted a burial service for her in the 
[rites] of the Greek Catholic faith. From that day until the Aleuts living there were taken 
to the Alaskan coast for their own safety when war came even to their barren waste land, 
hardy wild flowers were kept growing near the little stone slab bearing the name, “Mrs. 

Cora Giles Haley.” After the war ended the natives returned, new flowers were planted. 

George’s last request was that his ashes be buried beside his wife’s grave on St. Paul Island. 18 

Karl W. Kenyon, seal biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service, received Dr. Haley’s 
ashes on September 9, 1954, at St. Paul Island. The following is an excerpt from his kindly 
letter to Dr. Robert C. Miller, Director of the California Academy of Sciences. 

Dr. Haley’s ashes reached the Pribilofs shortly before I left; thus I was not on hand for the 
funeral.... I did speak briefly to one of the natives who was present at the funeral. Mr. 

Roy Hurd, who was at that time Agent in charge of St. Paul Island, was the government 
representative who witnessed the burial. Two natives who had known Dr. Haley, Gabriel 
Stepatin, and Elary Gromoff, were also present and Elary told me that a small metal plaque 
was inscribed to mark the grave, which is near Kamenista. 19 

In 1960, after a forty-year absence, naturalist G Dallas Hanna revisited St. Paul Island 
(as discussed below in his biography). Dr. Hanna was a friend of the Haleys and was 
requested to place a more durable, engraved plaque at their resting place by Kamanista. 


Plaques at George and Cora Haley’s gravesite, 
St. Paul Island, circa 1960s. (Courtesy Ann 
Baltzo.) 




293 







Pribilof Islands: The People 



George and Cora Haley gravesite at the southerly base of Kaminista Ridge and quarry, St. Paul Island, 
May 2008. (Photo: John A. Lindsay, NOAA.) 


Hanna wrote about the tribute: “On the morning of June 13,1 suggested to Mr. [Howard] 
Baltzo that we would need a lunch because it was an all day’s walk to Kamanista. He said, 
‘You can drive there in ten minutes,’ and he was right!” 20 The above photographs taken 
in 2008 show the general location of the Haley gravesite and the plaques placed by their 
friend G Dallas Hanna. 


Hanna, G Dallas ( 1887 - 1970 ) 

Employee, US. Bureau of Fisheries, 1913-1920 

St. George Island, Assistant Warden, 1913; Teacher and Radio Operator, 1913-1914; 
Census-Taker, summers 1913-1920 

St. Paul Island Teacher, 1914-19IS; Storekeeper, 1916-1919; Assistant Agent and Agent, 
October 1916-fune 1917; Paleontologist, Curator, California Academy of Sciences, 
1919-ca. 1970 

Genealogy 

G Dallas Hanna was born on April 24, 1887, in Carlisle, Lonoke County, Arkansas, to 
Franklin Pierce Douglas Hanna, a schoolteacher and farmer, and Rosanna Martha 
(Bateman) Hanna. G Dallas Hanna married Texas-born Elizabeth F. Farquhar (April 16, 
1884-January 7, 1954) on July 29, 1913, on St. Paul Island, according to the 1913 govern- 


294 








_Biographies H ♦ Haley - Hanna 

ment Agent’s Log. G and Rosanna had one daughter, Edna, born on St. Paul Island in 
1915. Elizabeth served as a teacher during her years on the islands. G Hanna’s second 
marriage was to Margaret Scott Moore (September 4, 1906-1997), born in Orange, 
Franklin County, Massachusetts. Margaret was the daughter of dairyman John Moore and 
Grace M. (Perkins) Moore. 21 G Dallas Hanna died November 29, 1970 at San Francisco, 
California. 22 

Biographical Sketch 

G Dallas Hanna’s first field position, following 
graduation from the University of Kansas, took 
him as an employee of the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries 
to Alaska’s Bristol Bay area in the spring of 1911. 

His apparent mission was: 

to find out everything he could about the fisheries, 
aquatic biology, and miscellaneous wildlife 
resources of the area.... 

In the winter of 1912-13 he made a historic trip 
of a thousand miles by dog sled, from the head of 
Bristol Bay to Idadorod [sic] and return.... He 
collected 800 birds and mammals for the United 
States National Museum.... All that science 
needed was the skin and skulls. The meat he 
apportioned between himself and his sled dogs.... 

His new assignment [1913-1920] was to the 
Pribilof Islands, more remote and wet and cold 
and fog-bound even than Bristol Bay. Here 
he kept count of the Alaskan fur seal-herd ... 
and formed lasting friendships with the local 
human inhabitants, both Aleuts and the few 
resident whites, through his interest in them 
and his ingenuity in suggesting new solutions 
to the particular problems of an inhospitable 
environment. 

In addition to his duties as custodian and census-taker of the fur seals on their breeding 
grounds, Dr. Hanna studied the general natural history of the Pribilofs and published 
papers on both the birds and the mammals. He also interested himself in the geology and 
paleontology of the islands, and took up the study of fossil diatoms—a specialty that was to 
play an important role in his subsequent career.... 

Dr. Hanna’s interest in microfossils ... began in 1916 when working on a fossil diatom 
deposit on St. Paul Island; he designed a new type of “mechanical finger” clamped to his 
microscope for greater ease in handling and mounting individual diatom specimens for 
study. This is still the best apparatus available for such extremely delicate work and is in 
constant use today. 23 

In a fifty-year career, Hanna became recognized as a leading paleontologist and in¬ 
ventor of equipment for scientific research. He served as director of the Naval Arctic 
Research Laboratory at Point Barrow (1955-57) and continued his research in the arctic 
throughout his life. He conducted geological field explorations for the National Academy 
of Sciences. He introduced the use of microfossils for the identification of oil-bearing 



G Dallas and wife Margaret, St. Paul 
Island, 1960. (NARA, Pacific Alaska 
Region, Anchorage, Administrative 
Correspondence, ca. 1888-1987. RG 22- 
9S-ADMC-2209.) 


295 











Pribilof Islands: The People 


strata (Reiber-Hanna, patent no. 1,665,058. April 13, 1928). At the California Academy 
of Sciences he led a team that designed and constructed the Morrison Planetarium pro¬ 
jector, at the time considered the finest of its kind in the world. He also worked with 
Eastman Kodak Company (1954) in the development of a precise and inexpensive color 
printing process. 24 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

When the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Fisheries, sent G Dallas Hanna to 
the Pribilof Island of St. George as an assistant warden and teacher in 1913, 25 no one 
could have envisioned the impact the man would have on conserving the history of the is¬ 
lands. Hanna took numerous photographs of daily life experiences, the sealing processes, 
work crews, families at work and at play, school children, plant life, birds, landscapes, seal 
rookeries, young and old seals, and buildings being constructed, moved or razed. Along 
with photographs he gathered field collections of biological, geological, and paleonto¬ 
logical specimens; and he compiled meticulous notes while also writing daily logs on St. 
George and St. Paul islands (1916-1917 and 1918, respectively). 

After learning that the St. George Tanaq 
Corporation had acquired many of Hanna’s 
original 5x7 inch and 8x10 inch glass plate 
negatives of photographs taken on the Pribilof 
Islands, NOAA worked collaboratively with 
the Native corporation in 2007-2008 to cata¬ 
logue and temporarily conserve the negatives. 
Together, these entities enlisted the assistance 
of the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson to 
scan the negatives. Subsequently, the nega¬ 
tives were transferred along with electronic 
files of the images to the National Archives 
and Records Administration, Pacific Alaska 
Region, in Anchorage, Alaska, for permanent 
conservation. 26 The field collections are found largely at the U.S. National Museum in 
Washington, D.C., and the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, California. 
Nine percent (forty-one) of his 438 publications from 1909-1961 listed by the California 
Academy of Sciences focused on the Pribilof Islands, covering the period 1914 to 19517 
Examples include his doctoral thesis “The Alaskan Fur Seal” (1918); “Geological Notes 
on the Pribilof Islands, Alaska, with an Account of the Fossil Diatoms” (1918); “Random 
Notes on Alaska Snow Buntings” (1923); and “Rare mammals of the Pribilof Islands, 
Alaska” (1923). 

In 1923, Hanna attempted to publish a manuscript recounting his observations and 
experiences on the Seal Islands infused with historical background of the islands. His 
draft manuscript, entitled “The Alaska Fur-Seal Islands” was found among files at NOAA’s 
National Marine Mammal Faboratory (NMMF) Fibrary in Seattle, Washington. Hanna 
had been unsuccessful in his attempts to publish the manuscript. This junior author 



G Dallas Hanna in the fur-seal lab on St. Paul 
Island, 1915. (NOAA, NMML Library, Seattle, 
WA.) 


296 









Biographies H ♦ Hanna 


edited and published Hanna’s eighty-five-year-old manuscript as a limited edition in 2008 
through NOAA and the Government Printing Office. 

Amazingly, G and Elizabeth also taught school on the islands. Also, “For a period of 
several months, beginning in October, 1913, the radio station on St. George Island was 
operated by Mr. G. Dallas Hanna, the Bureau’s schoolteacher on the island.” 28 

The Pribilof Islands offered many avenues for Hanna to expand his natural history 
research and studies, and in June of 1919, he received a PhD from George Washington 
University. His thesis concerned the natural history of the Pribilof Islands. While Hanna 
subsequently accepted an appointment with the California Academy of Sciences in 1919, 
he continued to work on the Pribilofs during the summers of 1919 and 1920. 

In 1919 he accepted an appointment as Curator of the Department of Paleontology [now 
Geology] in the California Academy of Sciences, at the invitation of the Academy’s then 
director, Barton Warren Evermann, who—in his previous capacity as chief of the Alaska 
Division of the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries—had acquired first-hand knowledge of Dr. Hanna’s 
brilliant mind and versatile abilities. 29 

In 1960, Hanna revisited St. Paul Island for one week in the company of his second 
wife Margaret and a Mr. I<. I<. Bechtel, President of the Belvedere Scientific Fund. Hanna 
visited with Agent Roy Hurd and Program Director Howard Baltzo, among others. The 
group asked Hanna numerous questions about his recollections of conditions and events 
on the island. They recorded the questions and answers on tape. The tape was later tran¬ 
scribed and titled “A Comparison of Conditions on St. Paul Island During 1913-1920 
with the Present.” Hanna also prepared a “resume,” as he termed it, in a very limited edi¬ 
tion of two copies. Copies of each document were sent to Victor B. Scheffer with the Fish 
and Wildlife Service at Sand Point, Seattle, Washington. Hanna wrote in his brief cover 
letter to Scheffer: 

I am glad to be able to send you a copy of the “Comments.” It is a very disconnected sort 
of thing and tape recording was new to me. Except for Mr. Bechtel’s insistence I am sure it 
would not have been copies [sic]. 

After returning from St. Paul, I wrote out a resume of my observations in what seems to 
me to be in better form. I have only two copies of this but have enclosed it with the tape 
recording. If you should have it copied by any chance, you might send it back to me; or a 
substitute copy would do. 

Scheffer left a typed copy of Hanna’s August 5, 1960, six-page, plus two maps and 
one photograph, “resume” titled “Random Comparisons of St. Paul Island as Observed 
by Dr. G. Dallas Hanna in 1960 After an Absence of 40 Years” in the files at the NMMF 
Fibrary in Seattle. Scheffer presumably returned the original two copies back to Hanna, 
as per Scheffer’s statement in a letter of reply dated December 12, 1960, which is also in 
the NMMF Fibrary files. 


297 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


Hanson (Hansson), Alexander ( 1858 - 1896 ) 

Seal Skin Expert, Alaska Commercial Company, St. Paul Island, 1886-1896 

Genealogy 

The 1894 U.S. Census of St. Paul Island listed 
Alexander “Alex” Hanson as a thirty-six-year-old 
bachelor. The 1895 census recorded his marriage 
to Lukina (aka Lukaria and Lukeria; nickname 
Lucy) 30 Kushin, born on St. Paul Island on January 
1, 1877. Lukina was the daughter of Aggie and 
Mary Kushin. Lukina’s two-year old son, Nestor 
Kushin, born November 7, 1892, on St. Paul 
Island, 31 was the third member of the Alexander 
and Lukina Hanson family. Alex Hanson died on 
Sunday, May 17, 1896, a month after the birth of 
the couple’s son, John (April 9, 1896). The St. Paul 
Agent’s Log noted: 

Native fishing, only 4 fish caught. Among those 
fishing was Alex. Hanson. Upon his return home 
he dropped dead of heart failure. Every effort was 
made to discern signs of life without success. 32 

In 1901 widow Lukeria (Kushin) Hanson 
married Alexander Galaktionef (born at Atka 
in 1872) on St. Paul Island. The St. Paul Island Census of 1910 showed Alexander and 
Lukeria Galaktionef had the following four children from their marriage and two from 
other unions: Mary, born May 29, 1902; Matrona, October 17, 1903; Aggie, November 3, 
1906; Anna Hanson, stepdaughter, born August 14, 1900; 33 John Hanson, born 1896 (left 
St. Paul Island for Salem Indian Training School in Chemawa, Oregon 34 on June 29,1911); 
and Nestor Kushin, stepson, born November 7, 1892. 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Alexander Hanson 35 deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration on April 30, 1892, before 
Notary Public Clement Bennett at San Francisco, California. The following is an excerpt 
from that deposition. 

I am 34 years of age, a native of Sitka, Alaska, and was educated in the public schools of 
California, and afterwards attended school six years in Lovisa, Finland, returning to the 
United States in 1875, when 18 years old. I immediately took service as a second mate 
on the schooner Matthew Turner, and later on the steamer Dora, vessels of the Alaska 
Commercial Company sailing to Alaska, and was employed a great part of the time, for two 
years and a half, in the Unalaska district. In 1886,1 went to St. Paul Island of the Pribilof 
group, and have since remained there constantly from that time until August, 1891.1 was 
employed there in various occupations in connection with sealing, but chiefly in handling 
sealskins and as one of the killing gang, and am familiar with every phase of the business. 36 



Alex Hanson and Anton Melovidov, 1892. 
(SIA-80-13428.) 


298 











Hanson (Hansen), John ( 1896 - 1950 ) 

Sealer, Reindeer Herdsman, Seal Foreman, St. Paul Island 


Biographies H • Hanson 


Genealogy 

John Hanson was born April 9, 1896, on St. Paul 
Island to Alexander Hanson and Lukina (Lukaria, 
Lukeria; nickname Lucy 37 ) Kushin Hanson 
(see Alexander Hanson biography). John mar¬ 
ried Chionia Stepetin on August 9, 1916, on St. 
Paul. Chionia was born December 16, 1895, on 
the island, the daughter of Dorofay Stepetin. 
According to the St. Paul Island 1930 Census, 
John and Chionia had three children born on St. 
Paul Island: Frances, a daughter, born December 
30, 1917; Xenofont, a son, born February 9, 1919; 
and John Alexander Jr., born February 4, 1920. 
On June 9, 1950, John Hanson Sr. was buried on 
St. Paul Island, with the whole village joining in a 
procession to the cemetery. 

Biographical Sketch 

John Hanson left St. Paul Island for Salem Indian 
Training School in Chemawa, Oregon, on June 
29, 1911. According to the island’s 1920 census, 
he had returned to St. Paul Island from Oregon 
and was working as a sealer. He became the is¬ 
land’s reindeer herdsman and, later, the sealing 
crew foreman on St. Paul. 



Left to right: Justinia Stepetin with her 
mother, Marva, and Chionia Stepetin 
Hanson. (Fredericka Martin Photograph 
Coll., 91-223-138, Archives, Alaska and 
Polar Regions Coll., Rasmuson Library, 
University of Alaska Fairbanks.) 


Soon after John Hanson’s passing, his son Xenofont found a fossilized mammoth 
tooth on the beach in the wake of a storm at Northeast Point, while beachcombing with 
zoologist Victor B. Scheffer. Scheffer wrote: 

My companion was Xenophon [sic] Hanson, a native of St. Paul who speaks the Aleut 
tongue as well as English. He was born on the island and now works for the Government 
as an electrician. He suddenly stooped and picked up a strange object, which he is shown 
holding in the accompanying illustration [next page]. 

Brushing off the sand he brought it to me, turning it over curiously in his hands. One 
glance revealed that it was a cheek tooth of the mammoth, a relative of the elephant, gone 
from the face of the earth for 10,000 years. Not since the 1890’s had mammoth remains 
been found on St. Paul Island. We took the tooth to the village and found that it measured 
nine and one-quarter inches in length and weighed three pounds, eleven ounces. It seemed 
to be partially fossilized, although it was not embedded in a stony matrix.... Since 1836, 
discoveries of mammoth remains on the Pribilof Islands have been reported five times. The 
most recent find before Hanson’s was one made by Dr. Robert Evans Snodgrass in 1897, in 
a volcanic cave on St. Paul. 38 


299 









Xenophont Hanson with mammoth tooth found on St. Paul Island, 1950. (NOAA, NMML 
Library, Scheffer Coll., 2777.) 



John Hanson burial procession, St. Paul Island, 1950. (NOAA, NMML Library, Scheffer Coll., 
2756.) 


300 














Biographies H • Hanson - Harrington 



John Hanson measuring the length of a northern fur seal carcass, St. Paul Island. 
(NOAA, NMML Library) 


Harrington, John Peabody ( 1883-1961) 

Anthropological Linguist, U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology 
Genealogy 

John Peabody Harrington was born in Waltham, Massachusetts, on April 29,1883, to Elliott 
Harrington, a prominent lawyer, and Mary L. (Peabody) Harrington. John Harrington was 
married briefly to Carabeth Tucker, with whom he had a daughter, Awona. 39 

Biographical Sketch 

John Harrington and family moved to Santa Barbara, California, in 1886. At Santa 
Barbara, Harrington’s interest in Native languages began while listening to the Indians 
speak at the local mission. After his graduation from Stanford University in 1905, he 
began his life’s work, “to collect extensive and accurate linguistic data from the nearly 
extinct languages of Southern California.” 40 However, he would end up expanding that 
goal. In 1915 he joined the Bureau of American Ethnology, where he concentrated his 
research on ethnologic and linguistic studies. 41 “From then until his retirement, nearly 
forty years later, Harrington had . . . virtually unbounded freedom to wander the North 
American continent carrying out his mission of linguistic and cultural documentation.” 42 
Now housed at the Smithsonian Institution, his collection contains data for 125 languag¬ 
es gathered from California and the Far West. 

Carabeth Tucker and John Harrington were research colleagues. In 1975, at nearly 
80, Carabeth Laird published a biographical portrait of her former husband under the 
title Encounter with an Angry God. 


301 







Pribilof Islands: The People 



John Peabody Harrington (left) and 
Father Makary Baranov (right), St. 

Paul Island, circa 1942. (Fredericka 
Martin Photograph Coll., 91-223-216, 
Archives, Alaska and Polar Regions Coll., 
Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska 
Fairbanks.) 



John (Ivan) Yatchmeneff. (John P. 
Harrington Papers, NAA, 81-13607.) 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

John Peabody Harrington worked at St. Paul 
Island from October to mid-December 1941, 
studying Aleut customs, taking photographs, and 
collecting linguistic sounds in the form of descrip¬ 
tive stories. He acquired “an extensive [Aleut] 
vocabulary and a number of written texts” with 
the assistance of scribe John (Ivan) Yatchmeneff, 
who was the son of ethnographer Waldemar 
Jochelson’s assistant Aleksey M. Yachmenev 43 
(see Jochelson’s biography). In December 1941, 
Harrington made a series of sound recordings 
on eighteen-inch aluminum discs, capturing the 
Aleut language in both word and song. According 
to James R. Glenn in 1991, fifteen discs were ar¬ 
chived at the Smithsonian Institution National 
Anthropological Archives (NAA), and thirteen 
others at the National Archives and Records 
Administration. 44 The interviews on the record¬ 
ings at the NAA are a mix of Aleut, English, and 
Russian. The following thirteen titles are among 
those listed in the NAA inventory: (1) The Pribilof 
Place Names and Words for Animals and Plants 
in English and Aleut; (2) A Shipwreck Experience 
in British Columbia and Animals of the Islands; 
(3) Animals and Plants; (4) Professor Waldemar 
Jochelson’s Visit and the Bird Reserve on St. 
George Island; (5) Native Rights; (6) Aleut Prayer 
Book Reading; (7) Russian Attack at Umnak; (8) 
A Story of Two Drunken Aleuts Fighting; (9) The 
Preface to Veniaminov’s Evangelism; (10) Bible 
Readings; (11) Fox and Lemming Story; (12) Seal 
Drive Story; and (13) Personal Experiences. 45 

Local Aleuts identified as interviewees in¬ 
cluded (although several names are misspelled) 
Ivan (John) Yatchmeneff, John Paul Marr, the 
Reverend Makary Baranoff, John Merkulieff, 
Nikifor Madrugin, Kondrat Krukoff, and Gabriel 
Stepatin. 


302 











Hays, Captain John M. 

Master Mariner, Alaska Commercial Company 


Biographies H ♦ Harrington - Healy 


Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Captain John Hays gave his deposition for the Tribunal of Arbitration on March 31,1892, 
before Notary Public Clement Bennett at San Francisco, California. The following is an 
excerpt: 

I reside in San Francisco, and am by occupation master of a vessel. Have been in the 
employ of the Alaska Commercial Company since 1881, and in the discharge of my duties 
have visited annually, with one exception, the different trading posts on the islands of 
the Aleutian Archipelago, and on the Alaskan coast in the Bering Sea as far north as St. 

Michaels, and prior to 1890 I went annually to the seal islands in the Bering Sea. 46 


Healy, Captain Michael Augustine ( 1839 - 1904 ) 

U.S. Revenue Marine Service, 1865-1903 
Genealogy 

Michael Augustine Healy was born on September 
22, 1839, 4 on a 1,600-acre plantation 48 near 
Macon, Georgia. Michael was the youngest son 
of Irish immigrant plantation owner Michael 
Morris Healy (b. ca. 1785-d. 1850), and Mary 
(aka Maria) Eliza Clark Smith (1802-1850), a 
mulatto slave purchased by the senior Michael 
Healy from Sam Griswold, a gun manufacturer 
of Clinton, Georgia. Mary Smith was the slave 
daughter of Major James Smith and his slave, 
also named Maria and also of Clinton, Georgia. 49 

Under Georgia law, the senior Healy could not marry a slave; the two entered into a 
common-law relationship. Georgia law at the time also prevented slave owners from free¬ 
ing their slaves except by a special act of the state legislature. 50 Because Mary was techni¬ 
cally a slave, so were their ten children, including Michael Augustine Healy. 

Michael A. Healy married Mary Jane Roach (1835-1907), daughter of John and 
Margaret Roach, in Boston, Massachusetts, on 31 January 1865. Margaret Healy accom¬ 
panied Michael on many voyages to the Bering Sea and bore him one son, Frederick A. 
Healy (1870-1912). 51 

Michael Augustine Healy died of a heart attack one year after retirement on August 
30, 1904, at San Francisco, California. 52 



Michael Healy aboard USRC Bear, 1895. 
(USCG Museum.) 


303 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


Biographical Sketch 

The local Georgia schools closed their doors to the Healy “slave” children. In 1837, Michael 
Morris Healy defiantly determined that his children would not be deprived of an educa¬ 
tion. He sought opportunity for his children in the North. Several of the Healy brothers 
enrolled at Holy Cross College, and in 1849, the young Michael A. Healy enrolled at Holy 
Cross grammar school in Worcester, Massachusetts. 53 William Lucey’s book Vie Catholic 
Church In Maine examined the Healy story and offered some background as to how the 
Healy children ended up at Holy Cross College: 

A providential meeting between Michael Healy, the father, and Bishop Fitzpatrick of 
Boston, changed the lives of the Healy children. The bishop told him to send his sons to 
Holy Cross College in Worcester, only one year in operation, and his daughters to Boston 
where his own sister would look out for them. In the fall of 1844, the four Healys enrolled 
at the college, Sherwood coming from the plantation to join James, Hugh and Patrick who 
were in New Jersey. 54 

The younger Michael Healy ran away from school several times, twice from Holy 
Cross and once from a Catholic school in Quebec. Eventually the call of the sea won out 
over education in his mind. 55 

In 1855, not quite sixteen years of age and thanks to his influential brother James, 
Michael Healy embarked on a life at sea as mate aboard the clipper ship Jumna out of 
the port of Boston. After ten years on merchant ships where his career fared poorly, 
Michael received an appointment from Abraham Lincoln to the Revenue Marine Service. 
At that time an appointment to a respectable government position required “the support 
of influential benefactors.” Purportedly, his brother James, now personal secretary to the 
Catholic Bishop of Boston, had attained sufficient political status to arrange for the ap¬ 
pointment. Michael had matured and had been passing for white; otherwise he probably 
would not have made it into the ranks of either the Navy or Revenue Marine. He now 
dedicated his life to the Service and rose in rank from third lieutenant on March 4, 1865, 
to captain on March 3, 1883. 56 

Michael Healy became known as “Hell Roaring Mike” by the men who served with 
him. He never lost a ship under his command, but he did lose the respect of his crew 
when, in the last six years of his service, he began to show signs of drinking to excess. 
Charges were brought against him twice. On the second occasion he was demoted, but 
he was restored to the rank of captain a year before his retirement in September 1903. 
Through it all, his wife Mary Jane remained loyal. 57 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Captain Michael A. Healy deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration on April 7,1892, before 
Notary Public Clement Bennett at San Francisco, California. The following is from his de¬ 
position: 

I am a citizen of the United States. I am now and have been for the last twenty-five years an 
officer in the United States Revenue Marine Service, and have been on duty nearly all the 
time in the waters of the North Pacific, Bering and Arctic Seas. For the past six years I have 
been in command of the United States revenue steamer Bear, prior to which time I had 
command of the United States revenue steamer Corwin for six years; both of which vessels 


304 





Biographies H ♦ Healy 



Captain Michael Healy (standing second row, third from the left), Mary and John Tuck of the Jessie Lee 
Home (standing, first and second on the left), and young ladies (seated) from St. Paul Island going to 
school at the Jessie Lee home, Unalaska. (NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, “Cruise of the U.S.R.C. Bear, 
Alaska and Eastern Siberia, Summer 1895.” Photo: John M. Justice. RG 26, Records of the U.S. Coast 
Guard, 26-CB.) 


were employed almost exclusively in navigating the waters of Bering Sea, guarding the 
seal islands, and protecting the seals found in those waters from destruction by poaching 
vessels engaged in what is known as pelagic sealing. My first voyage was made to the seal 
islands in 1869, and I have cruised annually for the last twelve years in the Alaskan waters 
about the Pribilof Islands up to the present time. 58 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Captain Michael Healy commanded a succession of cutters: Chandler (1877), Thomas 
Corwin (1880-86), Bear (1886-95), McCulloch (circa 1900), Golden Gate and Hartley 
(circa 1901-02) and Thetis (1902-03). 59 During his years of service in the Bering Sea, 
Healy was not only captain of his ship, but he also served the people of the Pribilof Islands 
and Alaska as a census-taker, judge, mail carrier, and food and materials supplier. The 
uncontrolled exuberance of those Americans who went unleashed to feast upon Alaska’s 
biological bounty brought famine and insult to Native societies by their introduction of 
alcohol, disease, firearms, and western culture. In an attempt to compensate for the re¬ 
duction in subsistence resources, especially seals, whales and walrus, Captain Healy on 
the Bear cooperated with the Reverend Sheldon Jackson to arrange the delivery of the first 


305 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


reindeer herd to Alaska from Indian Point, Siberia/’ 0 Healy, Lt. John C. Cantwell, and Dr. 
Charles H. Townsend, all credited with successfully introducing reindeer into Alaska/’ 1 
are much overshadowed by the contribution to the effort made by Sheldon Jackson. After 
some setbacks the program was eventually successful on both of the inhabited Pribilof 
Islands, where herds still roam free in the islands’ moss- and lichen-rich areas. 


Henriques, Captain John A. (1826-1906) 

U.S. Revenue Marine Service, 1854-1906 (Captain 1866-1906) 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Captain John A. Henriques deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration on April 7, 1892, 
before Notary Public George Y. Coffin at Washington, D.C. An excerpt follows. 

of New London, Conn., being duly sworn, deposes and says: I am 65 years of age, and a 
captain in the U.S. Revenue Marine, and have been in the service for twenty-nine years. 

In the fall of 1868 I was ordered to Sitka and in the spring of 1869 received instructions to 
proceed at once with the revenue steamer Lincoln to Bering Sea in order to protect the seal 
life from depredations, information having been received that seal-skins had been taken 
from the Pribilof Islands by unauthorized persons during the previous season.... On the 
13th of May I left Kodiak pursuant to orders, with 14 men of the Second Artillery and the 
commissioned officer, Lieutenant Mast.... On May 22nd, I landed a portion of the troops 
and Lieutenant Barnes, of the revenue service, with rations and stores, on St. Paul Island, 
one of the Pribilof group. The troops were here landed for the purpose of enforcing the 
United States Statute providing for the protection of seal life. 

After landing I called all the natives together, and through an interpreter informed them of 
the purport of the orders and directions of the Treasury Department.... I had heard from 
the natives that seals were very timid, and thereupon ordered all the dogs on the island to 
be killed, which order was executed within ten minutes after it was given. I further asked 
the natives to surrender all firearms in their possession until the close of the sealing season. 

... this also they immediately did. During the time I was on the island I particularly noticed 
the care that the natives took not to disturb the seal rookeries, even warning some of our 
party from the use of tobacco in any form in the neighborhood of such rookeries.... On 
May 24th I landed Lieutenant Henderson, of the Revenue Marine, on St. George Island 
with the remainder of the troops.... Lieutenant Henderson was vested with the same 
authority on St. George Island that Lieutenant Barnes had on St. Paul Island. [The natives] 
readily complied with the orders in relation to dogs and the use of firearms. 62 


Hereford, William S. (b. 1853) 

Physician, Alaska Commercial Company, St. George Island, 1880-1881, and St. Paul 
Island, 1881-1890 

Genealogy 

William S. Hereford was born in Missouri in January 1854. William Hereford married 
Flora J. in California. Flora J. was born during January 1864 in California. William and 
Flora J. Hereford had one daughter named Flora L. 63 


306 





Biographies H ♦ Healy - Hereford 


Biography 

W illiam Hereford received his BS from Santa Clara College at San Jose, California, in 
1874. He graduated with a MD degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1877. He 
was a qualified surgeon. 64 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

Dr. William Hereford began his medical career 
in Alaska with the Alaska Commercial Company 
in 1880. He took a position with the North 
American Commercial Company when the ACC 
lost its bid to renew the Seal Islands lease with 
the government. 

Dr. Hereford was an avid photographer; 
he joined forces with Pribilof Islands teacher 
Nicolas Gray to provide future historians with 
interesting images of human life on the Seal 
Islands. Some of Dr. Hereford’s photographs are 
conserved in the Alaska State Library at Juneau. 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Dr. Hereford deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration on April 12, 1892, before Notary 
Public Clement Bennett at San Francisco, California. The following is an excerpt. 

I am 39 years of age, and am a physician. I hold the degree of B.S., Santa Clara College, 

S.J., year 1874, also a regular graduate of the medical department of the University of 
Pennsylvania, year 1877; am a regular practitioner of medicine and surgery.” 65 

I entered the service of the Alaska Commercial Company August, 1880, for the purpose of 
being one of the resident physicians on the seal islands [sic passim], and was continuously 
in their employ until May, 1890, at which time I went into the employ of the North 
American Commercial Company in the same capacity until the latter part of August, 1891, 
having left by resignation. I was in the service of the Alaska Commercial Company almost 
ten years and with the North American Commercial Company about fifteen months, and 
had a total connection with the seal islands a little over ten years. Seal and seal life being 
the only and all absorbing topic of conversation, business, food, etc., equally with the 
natives as ourselves, one naturally becomes almost as familiar with the fur-seals and their 
habits, as a farmer would with those of the cattle and horses on his farm. 

In my capacity of physician and surgeon to the sealing companies ... I was stationed the 
first year, i.e. 1880 and 1881, at St. George Island, and in 1881 and 1882 at Unalaska, at 
which time my duties required me to sail from Unalaska to Attu, Belkofskie, Atka, Unga, 
etc. I have been from Kodiak to Attu and have visited the way places between those 
points.... After 1882 I was at St. Paul Island, with the exception of my vacations in San 
Francisco, Cal., until 1890 and 1891, when I was again placed on St. George Island. 66 

Dr. Hereford talked about the edible portions of the fur seal: 

The brain, heart, liver, and kidneys make very good eating, and taste about the same 
as those of other animals. The meat, however, which must be entirely freed from all its 
blubber or fat, though quite nutritious and palatable, is somewhat soft, of a dark color, and 



Dr. Hereford outside St. Paul Island 
Dispensary. (Alaska State Library, Gray 
and Hereford Photograph Coll., P185-13.) 


307 










Pribilof Islands: The People 


reminds one, according to how it is cooked, of wild duck, venison, etc., only it must not be 
eaten rare, but always well done. On our table it generally went by the name of St. Paul or 
St. George mutton, respectively, and had its regular place in our bill of fare, being far more 
preferable to “salt horse” and canned stuffs. 6. 


Honcharenko, Agapius (Ahapius) (1832-1916) 

Ukrainian Priest, Political Journalist, Publisher of Alaska Herald 


Genealogy 



Biographical Sketch 

Agapius Honcharenko graduated from the Kyiv 
Seminary in 1853. In 1857, he was sent to Athens, 
Greece, to serve as a deacon of the Orthodox Church. 
He began to contribute articles to Alexander Herzen’s 
Kolokol and to political publications in London, in 
which he described social injustices in his home¬ 
land, the Ukraine. The Russian government discov¬ 
ered his writings, and Honcharenko was arrested in 
1860 and imprisoned at Constantinople. After his 
release, he immigrated to the United States in 1865, 
near the end of the Civil War. 70 “He was active in 
writing in the American press for Horace Greeley, 
General Halleck, Secretary William Henry Seward, 
and other American leaders of his days [sic]. He 
Agapius Honcharenko. (Courtesy translated the Holy Scriptures for the American 

Michael Car.) Bible Society; he was instrumental in the Alaska 

Purchase in 1867, and he was the author of the first English-Russian grammar book in 
1868, which was used by the U.S. Armed Forces in Alaska.” 71 


Agapius Honcharenko (given name; Andrii 
Humnytsky) was born on August 31, 1832, in 
Kryvyn, Skvyra County, Kyiv Gubernia, Ukraine, 
known today as Slavic Russia. 68 The 1870 U.S. 
Census recorded Honcharenko as newly married to 
a twenty-nine-year-old woman named Albina from 
Pennsylvania. The 1900 U.S. Census indicated that 
Albina was born in December 1853 in Pennsylvania 
of Italian immigrant parents. Agapius Honcharenko 
died May 5, 1916 in Hayward, California. 69 


Honcharenko left journalism as a career after the 1875 congressional investigation 
into misconduct by the Alaska Commercial Company. He became an orchardist and 
poultry farmer in Hayward, Alameda County, California. Albina died in Hayward in 


308 







Biography H ♦ Hereford - Hopkins 


1915, and Agapius died the next year. They are buried on their farm. Their homestead 
became California Registered Historical Landmark no. 1025, State Park Ukraina, on May 
15, 1999. 72 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Agapius Honcharenko never went to Alaska, but he wrote forcefully about conditions 
and persons connected with the Territory. His articles in his San Francisco-based Alaska 
Herald (1868-72) and a booklet by Robert Desty, A History of the Wrongs of Alaska, pub¬ 
lished by the Alaska Herald, ' influenced Congress to investigate allegations of miscon¬ 
duct by the Alaska Commercial Company. 4 Honcharenko alleged the government acted 
illegally in awarding a contract to the Alaska Commercial Company for controlled killing 
of fur seals on the Pribylov Islands .” 75 

Honcharenko began his career in journalism in California in June of 1868, where he 
was “hired as a propagandist and secret agent by Oppenheimer [sic] & Company 
including Louis P. Goldstone, who were furious over the victory of rivals centered around 
Hutchinson, Kohl & Company, granted a monopoly by Congress over the hunting of 
Alaska fur seals .” 76 


Hopkins, David Moody ( 1921 - 2001 ) 

Geologist, US. Geological Survey, 1942-1984 
Genealogy 

David Hopkins was born on December 26, 1921, in Nashua, New Hampshire, to Donald 
and Henrietta Hopkins of Greenfield, New Hampshire. He obtained a bachelor’s degree 
in geology in 1942 from the University of New Hampshire and his graduate degrees from 
Harvard University in 1948 and 1955. David Hopkins married Joan Margaret Prewitt in 
December 1948 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Joan died in 1955. David Hopkins’ second 
marriage, to Martha Bryant, ended in divorce. David Hopkins spent his last thirty-one 
years married to Rachel Chouinard. 


Biographical Sketch 

Dr. Hopkins’ obituary summarized his life as a scientist: 

When Hopkins died, on November 2, 2001, he was remembered as “the Arctic scientist 
who promoted the theory that a now-submerged land link between Siberia and Alaska 

allowed humans, animals and plant communities to migrate 12,000 years ago-Little 

was known about the Bering land bridge when Hopkins began his field work on Alaska’s 
Seward Peninsula in the early 1940’s as a research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey. 
Working with botanists, archeologists and other scientific specialists in the 1950s and 
’60s, Hopkins promoted the theory that the land bridge linked Asia and North America 
and allowed humans, animals and plant communities to migrate some 12,000 years ago. 
Hopkins worked as a research scientist for the U.S. Geological Survey from 1942 until 
1984, when he became a distinguished professor at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. 


309 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


He taught, conducted research, and directed the Alaska Quaternary Center until his 
retirement in 1994. 78 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

Dr. David Hopkins led geologic studies of the Pribilof Islands. During the summers of 
1962 and 1965, his field work included studying the evidence for the age of St. George 
and St. Paul islands. An in-depth study of fossil evidence, volcanic activity, and geologic 
profiles indicated that St. George Island was older than St. Paul Island by nearly two mil¬ 
lion years. 79 

A small ice cap ... and at least two, probably four, cirque glaciers occurred on St. George 
Island, Pribilof Islands, probably during the Illinoian Glaciation. Snowbanks persisted 
during a later cold cycle, probably during the Wisconsin Glaciation, with no glaciers 
existing. We found no evidence of glaciation on other Pribilof Islands. 

The Pleistocene history of the Pribilof Islands interests geologists, anthropologists, and 
biogeographers because the islands lie near the southwestern edge of the continental shelf 
that extends between Alaska and Siberia, beneath the Bering and Chukchi Seas. The islands 
are thus favorably situated to provide a record, as to time and environment, of former land 
connections between Asia and America. 80 


Hornaday, William Temple (1854-1937) 

Conservationist 


Genealogy 

William Temple Hornaday was the son of William 
and Martha (Varner) Hornaday. William Temple 
Hornaday was born in the vicinity of Plainfield, 
Indiana on December 1, 1854. 81 

Biographical Sketch 

Dr. William Temple Hornaday became an orphan 
at the age of fifteen. He attended Oskaloosa 
College (Iowa) and Iowa State University, which 
he left in his sophomore year. His numerous ac¬ 
complishments were rewarded with honorary 
degrees from the University of Pittsburgh (1906), 
Yale University (1917), and Iowa State College 
(1923). 82 

Dr. Hornaday served as the Smithsonian 
Institution’s chief taxidermist (1882-90). 83 He 
assisted with drafting the plans for the National 
Zoo in Washington, D.C. Later, he became the first director (1896-1926) of the New 
York Zoological Park. 84 Dr. Hornaday spent a lifetime protecting America’s threatened 



William T. Hornaday, circa 1910. (U.S. 
Library of Congress.) 


310 












Biographies H ♦ Hopkins - Hornaday 


species. He is credited with saving the American bison from extinction. His book Thirty 
Years War for Wildlife: Gains and Losses in the Thankless Task is his own testament to his 
passion. 85 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Henry Wood Elliott (see Elliott’s biography) had worked feverishly to convince the United 
States government to enter into a treaty to save the northern fur seal from extinction. The 
Hay-Durand Agreement for a Fur-Seal Treaty of 1905 grew from collaboration among 
Secretary ol State John Hay, Henry W. Elliott, and U.S. Senators Dillingham, Pratt, and 
Foraker. These men had crafted a fur-seal treaty between the United States and Great 
Britain that called for an end to pelagic sealing, joint control over the fur-seal harvests, 
and a fair division of profits. Secretary Hay approved the draft on March 7, 1905. British 
Ambassador to the United States Sir Mortimer Durand approved the draft three weeks 
later on March 27. 

Secretary Hay died on July 1, 1905, during a sea voyage taken for health reasons. He 
had instructed Henry Elliott to finalize the document, and Elliott and Second Assistant 
Secretary of State Alvey Adee met with Hay’s replacement, Secretary Elihu Root on that 
account. Secretary Root scrapped the treaty for undisclosed reasons. 86 

In 1906, the fur seal’s strongest protagonist, Henry Elliott “reached a point where 
hope died; he saw that he could go no further. At last he became so ill with anxiety to save 
his beloved seals from extinction that his insistence turned savage, and his relations with 
certain scientists and bureau officers of Washington became a complete wreck.” 87 Early in 
1907, Elliott prevailed upon Hornaday to “do something to save those fur seals.” 88 

In the spring of 1909, Hornaday suddenly realized a sense of duty and boldly ac¬ 
cepted Elliot’s request for help to save the fur seal. However, Hornaday “brutally pro¬ 
posed to Elliot” that he refrain from all contact with government officials. Elliot accepted 
Hornaday’s proposal. 89 

Hornaday accepted Elliott’s challenge with the zeal he gave to other wildlife conser¬ 
vation causes. He began by proposing a resolution before a meeting of the Committee 
on Resolutions at the Seventh International Zoological Congress in Boston in 1907. The 
committee president was the renowned zoologist Alexander Agassiz, son of the late 
Louis Agassiz. Hornaday’s resolution failed to pass due to the protest of an aged Russian 
delegate “on the ground that it touched ‘the realm of foreign diplomacy’, and therefore lay 
beyond the terms of his authority to act.” 90 

By January 1909, estimates of the Pribilof Islands’ fur-seal population ranged from 
30,000 to 130,000. 91 The Toronto Globe printed an editorial on the subject of opposing 
a treaty that closed with: “If this fur-seal business has ever been equaled for organized 
deception and hidden political influence the world has never been enlightened by the 
disclosure.” 92 


311 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


Hornaday then made a bold political move. He had recently become chairman of the 
newly formed Committee on Wild Life Protection of the Camp-Fire Club of America; he 
also served on the club’s board of governors. 93 

Brandishing facts and figures, Hornaday won the board’s unanimous approval and 
convinced the committee of “the need for strong action, and the necessity for interference 
in the fur-seal situation by independent private citizens.” Hornaday wrote, “for better 
or worse . . . the Club made good throughout the stormy two years’ campaign that fol¬ 
lowed.” 94 Commitment in hand, Hornaday traveled to Washington to meet with the chair¬ 
man of the new Senate Committee on the Conservation of National Resources, Senator 
Joseph M. Dixon of Montana. Hornaday handed Dixon a resolution prepared by Elliott 
that echoed the failed Hay-Durand Treaty effort of 1905-06: 

(1) The immediate stoppage of the leasing system. 

(2) The making of a treaty with England, Japan, and Russia to stop the killing of seals at sea, 
on a percentage compensation basis, and 

(3) A 5- or 10-year close season for the recuperation of the herds. 95 

Dixon declared he would “spare no effort in trying to secure the passage of a satis¬ 
factory bill,” but he failed to make progress. 96 Hornaday then sent a letter appealing to 
Secretary of State Philander C. Knox to back the treaty that was being touted on the one 
hand as “in negotiations,” while on the other hand “no steps have been taken.” 

After all these years of failures in attempts to improve the condition of the unfortunate and 
persecuted fur seals by treaty measures, it is now high time for you and your Department 
to take hold of this matter, and achieve one diplomatic triumph! 97 

According to Hornaday his letter to Secretary Knox was never answered—“but, 
believe me or not, within ten days from its posting [the letter] the wheels of the State 
Department were in motion, and they never stopped moving until Secretary Knox DID 
‘achieve one diplomatic triumph!’ ” 98 

On December 10, 1909, the Camp-Fire Club released a nearly 2,000-word article, 
“The Loss of the Fur Seal Industry.” According to Hornaday it was printed in full by about 
twenty-five newspapers. 99 Taking a pacific stance, the Camp-Fire Club declared that 
“there would be no exhibitions of bad blood, no quarreling, and no fighting! On the con¬ 
trary, it will be a love-feast.” 100 

However, a contrary scenario played out. In Hornaday’s words: 

And then—ye gods and little fishes! At the beginning of the third act of the play, there 
started, and continued right down to the end, the bitterest and most brutal fight ever 
waged around the fur seal. 101 When I first entered the United States Capitol filled with 
a desire to play a part in the salvage of the fur seal and its “industry”, I little dreamed 
that I was breaking into a hornet’s nest of the first magnitude. It was reeking with selfish 
interests, cross purposes, intrigue, and chicanery. In my crass innocence, I assumed that 
the case had become so bad and so desperate that everyone would welcome every sane and 
logical remedial effort, and play fair! 102 

Within three months of the article in the press, the Senate Committee on the 
Conservation of National Resources, chaired by Senator Dixon, convened a hearing 
on “A Bill to protect the fur-seal fisheries of Alaska, and of other purposes.” Outside of 


312 




Biographies H ♦ Hornaday 


Congress, only Hornaday was invited or even notified of the hearing. Hornaday quips 
as to the possible reason: “Save Mr. Elliott, no one outside of Congress manifested the 
slightest interest in the fate of the unhappy fur seals.” 103 Hornaday presented himself and 
the cause magnificently. At the conclusion of the testimony, the eleven-member com¬ 
mittee moved and unanimously passed a resolution “that the Chairman be instructed to 
communicate to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor the view of the Committee that a 
new lease for the killing of fur seals should not be made, and that steps should be taken to 
secure treaties with foreign governments for the prevention of pelagic sealing.” 104 

After nearly forty years, the committee’s message put an end to the fur-seal fisheries 
leasing system. The North American Commercial Company’s lease expired at the end of 
April 1910. Heretofore, the Secretary of Commerce and Labor had been intent on making 
a new lease. Hornaday wrote, “The Bureau of Lisheries held that the making of a new lease 
was mandatory; and up to the starting of our campaign not a soul in the Advisory Board 
of the Lur Seal Service, nor in the Department of Commerce and Labor had said anything 
whatever against the making of a new lease, nor in proposal of any new measures for the 
saving of the seal herds.” 105 

Department of Commerce and Labor Secretary Charles Nagel had convinced the 
President to allow his agency to redraft the bill by successfully arguing that the Dixon 
Resolution was “inadequate.” 106 Nagel’s version allowed the killing of 2,500 seals per year 
over the proposed five-year moratorium for subsistence of Pribilof Natives, and $50,000 
per year for the “care of the idle seal-killers and their families.” 107 But more significantly, 
the legislation contained language, inserted by Secretary Nagel, authorizing the Secretary 
“all power over the seals, to kill or not to kill, as he might choose.” 108 This statement prob¬ 
ably reflected the mindset of the Bureau of Lisheries agents displayed by Agent Walter 
Lembkey back in 1906: 

Unless this settlement [of the pelagic sealing question] on a satisfactory basis appears 
imminent, I would recommend the killing on land of every seal that can be killed under 
existing law. 109 

Hornaday, representing the Camp-Lire Club, boldly approached President William 
Howard Taft upon learning of Secretary Nagel’s intent to leave “future killings of fur seals 
in his [the Secretary’s] sole control.” Hornaday asked the President to send a message to 
Congress requesting that it pass the bill, but with a proviso negating Nagel’s attempt to 
nullify the bill’s goal of protecting the seal herd from further slaughter until it recovered 
to sustainable numbers. 110 

On March 15, 1910, President Taft sent the following message to Congress: 

It appears that the seal herds on the islands named have been reduced to such an extent 
that their early extinction must be looked for, unless measures for their preservation be 
adopted.... TLe herds have been reduced to such an extent that the question of profit has 
become a mere incident, and the controlling question has become one of conservation.... 

The discontinuance of this policy [of killing] is recommended in order that the United 
States may be free to deal with the general question in its negotiations with foreign 
countries. 111 


313 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


On April 21, 1910, Congress passed An Act to protect the seal fisheries of Alaska, and 
for other purposes (S.7942; Public Act no. 146). The effective date of May 1, 1910, n ~ was 
commensurate with the expiration of the North American Commercial Company lease. 
Some significant mandates in the legislation included: 

A continued ban on pelagic sealing by U.S. nationals 
A ban on killing females and pups on land 
Termination of the leasing system 

However, the bill did not offer the total ban on killing sought by Hornaday. He stressed 
to Senator Dixon that Secretary Nagel “should give some definite assurance that except 
for food no seals would be killed on the Seal Islands for the next five years.” 115 Senator 
Dixon replied, “As I understand it, the policy of the administration is to enforce a closed 
season. That is the desired policy.” 114 Dixon’s reply was again politically expedient. On 
May 1, 1910, within two weeks after the bill was signed, news was published in Seattle 
“that Fish Commissioner [Ward T.] Bowers intended to kill an unstated number of fur 
seals for commercial purposes, because ‘they ought to be killed.’ ” 115 As Hornaday put it, 
“the gentlemen’s agreement with a Committee of the Senate was completely ignored.” 116 

On May 10, 1910, Dr. Hornaday and the Camp-Fire Club sent a strong letter of pro¬ 
test to Secretary Nagel. Hornaday later wrote that Nagel’s reply “was defiant, and wholly 
unsatisfactory. A stronger protest followed the first one, and the correspondence became 
savage.” 117 The final straw came on August 1, 1910, when it was learned that 12,920 fur 
seals, including 7,733 pups, females, and yearlings, had been killed for their pelts on the 
Pribilofs. 118 

Around this time, Secretary Nagel apparently sought relief from Hornaday’s constant 
assault. Presumably Nagel wrote to the president of the New York Zoological Society. 
Nagel asked if Hornaday spoke for the Society or the Bronx Zoo. The society’s president 
responded that Charles S. Townsend, Director of the New York Aquarium, also reign¬ 
ing under the auspices of the Zoological Society, was himself a defender of the seals. 
However, neither represented the Society on the issue over the fur seals. 119 Regardless, 
Hornaday’s own acclaim and his role in the Camp-Fire Club of America gave him all the 
standing necessary for this fight. Hornaday continued his assault. 

Hornaday wrote to Henry Elliott, “One of my answers to the seal killers was—Henry 
W. Elliott!” Recall that back in 1909, Hornaday “brutally” requested Elliott to stay quietly 
in the background feeding technical expertise and advice to his fellow fur-seal advocates. 
Hornaday wrote on: 

This action is an act of war. The lid is now off. So far as I am concerned you are henceforth 
entirely at liberty to fight the common enemy just as you see fit; for it must now be a fight 
to the absolute defeat of one side or the other. 120 

Elliott wholeheartedly entered the fray “inspired by memories of former battles when 
he fought alone; by the memories of years of official blundering, failures, and maltreat¬ 
ment of the seals, and of indignities that had been heaped upon him when overwhelmed 
by enemies. Mr. Elliott had the situation so thoroughly in hand, and he so well main¬ 
tained the advantage of being absolutely right, that very little further effort by us was 


314 





The Camp-Fire Club of America 

NEW YORK CITY 



OFFICERS: 


ALLIED 

CLUBS: 

President , 

Ernest T. Seton 

Lewis and 

Clark Club, Pittsburgh, Pa. 

Vice-Pres. 

, Dr. T. K. Tuthill 

Camp-Fire 

Club, 

Jamestown, N. Y 

Secretary , 

Arthur F. Rice 

Camp-Fire 

Club, 

Detroit, Mich. 

Treasurer , 

Edmund Seymour 

Camp-Fire 

Club, 

Los Angeles, Cal. 

Counsel , 

Julius H. Seymour 

Camp-Fire 

Club, 

Cody, Wyo. 


Committee on Protective 
Legislation and Game Preserves : 

W. T. Hornaday, Chairman 
Julius H. Seymour 
A. S. Houghton 
Arthur H. Masten 
Robert B. Lawrence 
Geo. W. Burleigh 
Leonidas Dennis 
Joseph P. Howe 
Charles D. Cleveland 
Oscar A. Campbell 
William B. Greeley 
Marshall McLean 
E W. Sanborn 


The Camp Fire Club of America has appointed a Committee on Pro¬ 
tective Legislation and Game Preserves, consisting of fifteen scientists and 
lawyers, with Dr. William T. Hornaday, Director of the New York Zoo¬ 
logical Park, as Chairman. This Committee recentlv met for organiza¬ 
tion and every member pledged his active support to the two measures 
which will be undertaken at this time,—one being national legislation 
looking toward a ten-year closed season on fur seals under the control of 
the United States; the other an active campaign to have set aside in the 
mountains of Montana, including the Lake Macdonald District, a large 
area of the public domain as a public park, to be controlled as is the 
Yellowstone Park in Wyoming. The plan contemplates taking up as 
rapidly as possible the better protection of game birds and other phases 
of the subject. 

The members of the Committee above mentioned are under agreement 
to pursue this work energetically not only in Washington, but also by 
correspondence with men of influence in other parts of the country, and 
by co-operating with officers of other societies who are in active sympathy 
with the desired result. Inasmuch as these gentlemen are willing to give 
their time, it is believed that others who are not in a position to take an 
active part, will be glad to subscribe a proposed fund of $2,000 to cover 
necessary expenses. 

The undersigned have consented to become members of a finance com¬ 
mittee to raise this amount for the purpose stated, and are glad to under¬ 
take the work. We wish to assure you as a fellow sportsman, that we 
will greatly appreciate any subscription towards this fund that you may 
care to make. Checks may be drawn to the order of B. Dominick, Jr. 
Treas., and mailed to him at his address in envelope which we enclose. 

We trust you will join us. 

STANLEY D. McGRAW, Chairman , i Nassau St., N. Y. 

B. DOMINICK, Jr., Treasurer, i i 5 Broadway, N. Y. 

CHARLES W. OGDEN, Secretary, 31 Barclay St., N. Y. 

ANDREW V. STOUT 

FREDERIC GALLATIN, Jr. 


The Camp-Fire Club of America pledged support for a moratorium on the killing of fur seals, and solic¬ 
ited contributions to support the cause, circa 1910. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, David Starr Jordan, 
SI A, RU 7176, box 4, folder 4.) 


315 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


$20,000,000 LOST 
BY SEAL KILLING; 
NAGEL ACCUSED 


Taft’s Secretary Charged with 
Having Winked at Slaughter 
of Herds in Alaska. 


JORDAN ALSO ATTACKED 


Experts Sent to Take Census of 
Animals Say Real Figures 
Were Suppressed. 

OTHERS IN ALLEGED PLOT 

Lessees Said to Have Made 
Extra Profit of $5,000,000 
Due to Government Neglect. 

CONGRESS TO GET REPORTS 


Many Sensational Accusations in 
Experts’ Findings—Nagel and 
Others Send Denials. 


Special to The New York Timc3. 

WASHINGTON. Jan. 17 .—Allegations 
of a sensational character reflecting 
upon former high officials and agents 
of the American Government, as well 
as upon men Interested in the North 
American Commercial Company of San 
Francisco, are embraced in two reports 
made public to-day by Representative 
John H. Rothermel of Pennsylvania. 
Chairman of the House Committee on 
Expenditures in the Department of 
Commerce. 

These reports were made to the House 

“$20,000,000 Lost,” New York Times, 
January 18, 1914. 


necessary.” 121 A congressional hearing on the matter 
which opened on May 21, 1911, and closed on 
March 14, 1914, resulted in a two-volume, 1,948- 
page testimony about fur sealing. Secretary Nagel 
submitted more than 1,200 pages of documents 
claiming to represent every report, letter, and other 
miscellaneous document written by the seal agents 
to the department from January 1, 1904, to June 24, 
1911. Nagel’s compilation became Appendix A to 
the Hearings on House Resolution no. 73. Appendix 
A is an extremely valuable historical compilation for 
the period covered. 

Subsequent to the Hearings on House Resolution 
no. 73, Congress passed legislation placing a five- 
year moratorium on the killing of fur seals. The goal 
of Henry W. Elliott and the Camp-Fire Club was 
achieved, although many lasting wounds resulted 
from the verbal fisticuffs. The hearings opened 
the way for negotiations, drafting, and ratification 
by Congress and the President of a fur-seal treaty 
signed by Russia, Great Britain, Japan and the 
United States. The treaty is popularly referred to 
as the Fur-Seal Treaty of 1911, 122 or North Pacific 
Fur-Seal Treaty, 123 but more accurately it is “the 
convention ... for the preservation and protec¬ 
tion of the fur seals and sea otter which frequent 
the water of the north Pacific Ocean” 124 or Fur-Seal 
Convention} 23 The convention was signed on July 7, 
1911, and ratified by Congressional Statute (37 Stat. 
499) on August 24, 1912, 126 with all the provisions 
sought by Elliott and Hornaday. 

Hornaday summarized the impact on his social 
well-being years after the “war” ended: “The cost 
to me in old friendships forever broken was great. 
Even today [1931] it is painful to contemplate. I 
have many ex-friends who never will forgive me for 
having started that fur-seal salvage campaign, nor 
for its having been successful.” 127 


316 











THE SUNDAY INTER OCEAN, OCTOBER 4 , 1898 . 


THE fate OF THE fUi^-seal 


(Tb* following tsairnetie* article o« 
acai-viLing Industry U by an* »So bn given 
It perUcaUrly clou attentlm Ur. Siqoier 
■rewo aaiogepflbc leereurK-s oftb* Halted 
*UUa commlailos belert lbs PsrD tribunal. 


Th* sealing se.ioo of ItM It about cl 
•ad IboM familiar »ltb lb* aubjeet find t 
•edve* ignis coefreoird «lth is* unvarying 


i»P*r»PH« coadlUM* »4 lha preference iba 
00W «l*r0JSS4 00 Uodlng, bul. lb* Mlcellon 
•oca Slid*, lb* rlglloae* a 1 bn lord aad aiaa- 
l«r lo Soldio* bcr t« few ckolc* Id nuti>i«. 
»od bu Imloni la «d*a rough aad tltaja 
lyraaaleal TSl. barm trabwa la a reiuabl* 
foalurw •( ml Ufa. lor. ablla tba allrotaoc* 
1* comuladv#. .hough riryiui aa iba aaatea 
advances. tb# compact. orderly cbarartar of 
tba breeding grounds la aalaiaload op la 
•bool July II aad furalshc* a rallabla eriw- 
rtoa of Iba lacraaaa or dlmlnutlen of iba fur- 
•aal. *a will u (Hording aa cicclleoi oppj-- 


doo. On arrlrlocal Iba former elly Ihe skins 
•ra packed to tight aUc bolding (too tw*n- 
jT-®»o la thirty busdlaa, (Sipped by specuJ 
Hair io No* York, aad thaoceby fax 

Tba. la about Ibrae weeks 
from tba time of Brat Hading la California 
ibar ara belog lorted aad cauiogvsd lo lb* 
«mi fur boua* of Laapaoo A Ca., lo read)- 
seaa for iba public auetleo ad* lo Iba fall 
II mar be m to nosed la pauloc tbal Iba 
statement appearing sporadically that this 
boalaeaa la a pul monopoly doaa sat. la ibe 


(act All Iba aaalablo* lakes by tba North 



OIK M Ion "Mow lose ra III II ba before tbafur- 


K»cS petals* Kir iaereires tbe possibility 


robot clearad by il 


far « 

Jrrt of (ba fi 


i reiioo t rrao'.l*. 


» true css aiteatlon 
for tight or DID* moots*, it baa alto sgato 
feeej iba lubjeet of ayitrmcle larotllcailoa. 
bub aa liaJ aad al >«. b?lbe fcprcaraiadv ro 
*d al teas: tour lelerciiad gevwumetls- 
t'cltrd 3iairt. Japan. Great Britain, aad Caa- 
•Aa—aad tba data tented mat plat a aio« 
lupamol par. U lb* fale ol iba fur-teal ibaa 
lk*i obtalced Ikroafb lb* cakoasdra 
Mtrbn of previous yean. 

( categories! answer ;o Ibe Inquiry baled 
It ba ailemptad without br.ef 


luaUy for Kadylag Iba feabluaf these ere* 

ures oo laad. 

Tbl* doKrlpiloa at iba brrrdtag- crouadt 
mu»l aot ba Ubeo too literally, far ibay bava 
*a Impartial Sit ion. long after tkalr well- 
defloed borden ara laal. tbai la »Srn tba 


rooloiOtol aad Sluotleal refertocta For- 
a.-n> repreieaiallm of tbe tor-seal family 
M-.«p:«d. is iDitumcrablo number at lest-, 
tbtny-aao localities la tb* routbero cea>. 
iui lurtln landed aod billed Ibem mdiscrlin- 
laauly. altboul record to ui aad today 
rb* ronirlbutlOBt from ib»»« Saulbera rea r 
«r» *» annual tbipmral ol about IS.OSD ikloi 
frns iSa LiSii UIjihIi. al Ibe mouth of (be 
f-i F in River, aod mull mlatllaoroui lou 
fro o since tbe rborn of Somb Amend toil 
-tartrails. Thus ibe fur trade of tbe aor.d 
bit »o« i« rrtj upon the itaDklci lo be ou¬ 
tlined from Ibe cerdi of erai! which occupy 
e* r-f -.111- North Pacific Ocean, tad 
Ibe I. acdi of St I*au 1 and fit. 


kneed u 


d licit Icy 


of defense So: upia Copper .... 

1* soils (the Commander croup at Ruts la), 
lac beiarrs lb* mmlaailoa of theAieuuio 
AreMprtaco mil tbe coatl of Kamchatka, 
up-to HoSSIa re*f. o liny lalei In ibo Okboirk 
am and. If mv esllrrly dr»iroy«l upon irrcn 
raob*ties uf tl'.alBUDve i!se oa tbo Kurile 
Wind* fi al l nol b* poaXble lo refer lo 
•vS loollly in detail, and ai tbo babiu of 
tb* Mai* occupy,Dt ilic-o ore oeirli IdeotUa. 
nod ii ibe Multan herd reiorlloc to our 
l‘nb| U>t Minda Ur uuteumbcr*-.bote on (be 
Arlailt tide of tbo FaelOe. It will bo tabco for 
an llluxratlgo. 

Seal* )ll K bl tie Culled Sen tiro re. 

U must bo homo lo mind that lbs true 
nr»l> are Iba balr-aekli. tucb ai ara found :■ 
«rrai aumbern it Nawfouodlaad walert. 
♦par.rly la many alter localllici aod are 
r*pieieaiad by *e>erai tpeclca TbU arilelo 
Au oo refernor* to them, but lo fur-uol*. 
• bleb. Ilka isoir kladred. Ibe *ea Ilona, oc- 
«py no asomtloui poaukts lo iba natural 
bJaiorr werld. aad from Ibnr free mavrs*oi> 
oa lacd aad coa«ral appearance (bau d prop 
erly be called aot iea a. bol "aa* baor*.- 

T*» fur eoala al iba Frlbylot lalandamar be 
dltUrd. for pwrposra of cosirsleoi teftr- 
‘mo Bar eateturlea, the naxai of -b:tb 
prraeai a curlawa Intcrmltiure of deflalily* 
teema The old. or breeding, males are called 
••buna tad miluro foeoaWn. wblrb taawn 
wRS U.aa». are ~«w\" ibalr olfepnac 
-mipr. Iba I ci mi la re faoulee ara "ye 
JI*C» ’ and “I-ytar-ofdt," while tbe roues 
■aloa frem I to J yeara of age ars "Uaebelors 
Sack elaai bu a dUilact annual earner. Tb 
old euict make their appearin'-* el ibe la 
ends lata la April ar early la 'May; a moot 
laier lie female* be«ln la arnee. aad. la lb 
lateml belaceo. ibe bubelora have cos 
lacocrd baullac oul Tbe auebera of it. 
lam lea group* rapidly lacreea* aa tbe leaios 
adraaen. 

Each '•iwokrry" la coiapoaed of two dla- 
tlsc; area*-tba "bteedloc grouoda" aad Ibe 
“hauling croonda.” Ibe former approprUied 
•alafy by Iba bulla aad tba cow a sad over the 
la.ier :Sr bachelors waadrr. play, or don at 
w Ul tVo* betid* Ibo unlucky b*cb*lor who 
>•*(*»** to Intrud* upas hla eUvra’ domalo 
fnr b* will b* foxueata Itdeml II ba eicapei 
wis a whole rklo Aaeaebolilmalalaodnoo 
tbe t-recdlnr greunds aod «:*r. upao b» lone 
fan o( rigbiy or tiaaiy days b* atiampu to 
d-’oiloxe a small aria, la tba rouranielua na 

»t Sir ntlgnbore, and will Rgbl fiercely crpo 

with fatal rmlfa. to maintain hlaprt-«mpi*l 
tlaliu agaloat All eonera. TbU glvaa rise to 
t ret: r jib motion, •‘tpeclafly after tba females 
b»do lo haul aut. and raaulla la canaldcniblo 
wor-'l t a»«c* iba sowly born pupa acd 
•owe derfet af mnlbrra. 

Tbr croup* of COWA yorylng from ono to 
for r. wticb aa old "aucoteble" may get 
•ro-ind Sim la approprlalrly called a "bircm," 
•ad I'd lira la moat rarlabu. dspsodlac spaa 


mother* art making otpcdiuoaa to ara Id 
qun*. of lab aad annul, that tb»ir voracious 
oSsprlrg may have lb»lr radon of milk. It 
is at tkls lima of apparent coe'usloa ud dti- 
ocd»f tbit th* young fomales mlaglo freely 
wlU (hr mothers aad Iba J year olds Brat 
voter lb* msltroal nelca. Thus It will 
readily be aesa Due Ibis eeeopancy of las 
iltsllscl arr aa by Ibe two cUurs of t*sla eo- 
ablea u> lo rXlmaln elcirly tba saoua: 
rbaogss. r*.l**o tba bwvdlog grouoda from 
*11 moleaiadao. aod mablri man 10 boaill* 
the youog Imnuiure malea lotelllgrBUy. 
without detriment to ibo herd tod with moro 
caso tbia • Bach of *b*«p. 

AW nutrdOB that tbla drssdroc* of these 
stela I* duo to tbelr iroatmeat oa land la 
rosro Boasent*. Nothing la raaier ibaa for 
tbo natives lo proeet'l to (bo hauling ground* 
In ibe nlgbi. which la tbca* oorlbcra laad> 
la of brtaf duruloo la auoiiscr. silently aud 
quickly pass botwcoo (bo Mad Of seals and 

1 ., tad. a lib a caanrtcd foraard 

. atsn them landward. Through 
(he dripping, fog-drroebed verdure llicy are 
driven nlibout Injury at tbs rail of about 

.c an hour and a-lth many balls to 

tlm “Idllloc grounds." Haro they ora met 
by tba nailics of Iba vlllag*. whs do the 
liitltag aid skinning ondcr tbs direction of 
the ofllecr of the North Amorlun Commercial 
Corn pa oi. which leases ib* prlrlUga of liking 
-wall from Ibo governro*ot, and Is tb* pris- 
jace of no efllcrrof Ib* Treasury DcparttneoL 
I.IIUe "poda" of thirty or forty ar* drl**a 
ip (rum time lo lime Iron the main hand, 
rad flv* or six trained "elubben" with ono 
quick Mow rob Ibe desirable arsis of lift 
and Iba ptliera »ro i un.cd back Into ibe aea. 

U alwaya adjacent to tba killing 
grouad As npldly aa they aroknoekad down 
be anil are bird, sod a eul nude Ib* Itngib 
if tba body and around Ibo muulc aod bind 
flipper*. Th* *klonrra follow, aod almost any 
on* of (beta rao ramoi* a pall id about one 
minute. 

Tbs skies tbo ibaa hauled M a tailing- 


ao that tbs seals wtra reduced (a a taw 

thousands, (ba adopiloe of tba aystrm of tak¬ 
ing aalr young males, aod inamac tba fe- 
*rom death aod molaaUUoe. aorsbabll- 
bea* nokerln Ibat they wars turned 
tbe Uatted BUIaa by tbe purchase of 
mi ta superb condition Tbla eaodltloe eon- 
tlaood ooder iba Improeed manaiwmeatof Iba 
Ualtod Sintra uolll ibe business af taking 
•sola at mo by filling aut acboooar* with a 
' cr of amaJI boils iod followlog iba herd 
December till September ••• leaugu- 

nlad. 

Tb s Wit mada ponlbla by ifeat moil ai- 
unordlsary faalur* of *csl Ilfs—ibalr taoual 
migration 

The Stake' Winter Pllgrlmaae. 

As Iba riger of aloler epprpiehta lb* Mali 

t no loogcr able lo maioUlo (bamaalvri nn 
Ibo Prlbylos loloada. aod they aUrt aoulbward 
Ihroogb tbe puses of tbo Aleutian ebate of 
lalaoda. gradually mart rastaard. aad Bnally 
reach tba Callforola coaal. where, condats*-! 
la number*, they move northward along Iba 
shorn, following Ibe great ta tap of tbe Nonb 
Pacific, aod fioaily make (heir way at tba 
dslea referred to tbcve. back to lb»lr cboa*n 
rnorlt. ta like tnaoa*r tba Aalatlc bird pro- 
taeda aoulbaard aloag the Japan coast, re¬ 
turning earthward lo the apriogaad summer 
Along that port of tba coon* b*gloalog with 
Callforola and coding lo D*brlag Sea Iba 
schooners keploooaiaatly on lhair track Aa 
Iba more tenure malea oaually preceded tba 
females, and »a 'ba taller were greaUy la aa- 
ceas of ibe farmer, ibo mortality among ibis. 
Ibo producing cam, waa enermously dispro- 
portlonala There a»a ool only tbla fatal 
drain, bul aa ibo prrtod ol gnudaa l» nrarly 
twelve montbk «ben a mother nun killed lo 
ibo North Pacific II meant Ihe deatrucilop of 
brr uoborn pup When she was killed In 
D- bring Sea Ibe ton of Hires ll**a remitted— 
Ibo moibcr, th* uobore i-oung. aod |b» pup 
upon Hi* breeding grounds, whose life uolll 
leaving Ills Islsnda In iba fall U dapeailvul 

■UmlaUd br tb* larg* ra'.ch** mad* wbso 
t*a1* nera abvodaol. lb* bmlnfat grew apM*. 
and lo prnpor.ion aa tbe prlaglc Caleb In- 
cr«aa*d, lb* dlmcnslona af Ibo brerillag- 
groiiDfii of lha Prlbylav lt.anda dlailalihrd 
This raierprlro bid nol been aucmpltd dur¬ 
ing Ituulan rontrol. bul by ibe lime Ike Hail¬ 
ed Slain bed bare la eeeopancy some fifirm 
years, tbe pelagM «allif b»d btcomo well 
deftnrd As hunting method* «*re Improved 
and knowledge of the Mali' mlgrallos routs 
Increased, Ibo eBrcii of Ibe killing al ica 
bsearo* mors pronounced, aod viewing with 
alarm iba deairwctloa of so valuable a proper¬ 
ly (Il baa yielded our govcrnseoi icreral mil¬ 
lions more moory Ibaa «as originally paid 
for all Alaska}, ibe Hailed Silica began salt 
log such of ibe sealing ecboODcn aa pantated 
la arlllog la Dsbring Sea Tfcia 
tlall; prevealed lb* Usoc ibera, db 
retard ibe eaormoua deeiruedoa la the North 


i, pelagic stalloc oa Iba Aalatia aids 
grrally lasreued. with Iba rrwwlt Ibat Ika 
asm* alatt of aSalr* baa b*«o reached oa Ibat <■, 
aid* of Ibo Pacific, aad iba Caleb this year b*s el 
tsllro off Mt shtaa per tstaal 

sealer* who law aaoually rwaderaaa* for 
loam boat lo Oabriog fins, al Dulcb 
Harbor. In Ooojlaaka Bay. fraaUy aui* chat 
Ibay caooot gel ae*la. because tbers ar* oo 
asaia lo gok Tbo aearelly la shown (ufiber 
by Ua (act ibal Iba difficulty of obtaining a 
ca'.cb ladue«a Iba aeala lo preaa closely ibo 
bordari of tba forbidden toss, with lb* re, 

Ibal Iba aedra aad rlgl aal patrol fieri Of 
revroua culler* under ibe able maotgri 
of Copula C L Hooper baa op lo Ibla 
allied alt acboooar*. flro of wb'cb warn 
found within ibo aUiy-mlle llmll 
What ssila did Iba United Slate) govern 
sal (aka during tbls prrlnd from IUI u 


American Comraertlai Company are told 
public auction lo lb* highest bidders to 

^^.^“^Pasiflc and ulllmalrly led loiaierna.iaa.i 
tba Bra. nr.ee received la *U*l wmparrd , , llk orr.t llrltata. at Ibe lo- 


wtlb Ibe ulliinilffiwtce iwcslved after ibo con- 
»o of the oklo Hilo aa article of fashion, 
company U *1 Ihe mrtcj of Ibo osrhrt 



^CTiTTER ' PATROL PLKET, 

nod ouru • lib a bandlcap of aorly }13 lo bo 
paid u the Vnued SUirs goveramesi. Lon¬ 
don l* tbo great fur market of the world, and 
sorly secured uni has succesafnltj inalotilncd 
control ol tbo world's output of Malxklas. 


aUice of Cantda. wboia idling irbooncrt 
bad been lnirrferrd with. 

The I'nrla Tribunal 

After much diplomat 
auay year* of drily dbo desiruedoo la Iba 
uieaaihnr goingHradlly oa). lb* romplleil'oo 
eulmliiKd with a bdrtat af bolb side* be¬ 
fore lb* Part* tribunal cf arbllrallaa. Tb* 
United Slat*!' eosiendoa itat sb* posiraird 
a property right bolb in lb* iral lirelf and 
Ibe induiiry deprndrat npoa Hi habit of rc- 
lurr.lag Is lb* laltsdi a a* desled by tbo (rt- 
bosal. oad ibe only rctuli prnalded by ibal 
blgb court la respaai* to ibe great gfiort pul 
forth for iba pmersadoo of tbU group of 
animals of such enormous pecuniary *aluo ta 
rr jo a s* ibe lagallting of pelagic sealing un¬ 
der rooAdoa* vrk'rk eoniinutd lo threaten 
tba enmmnrelAl rilrraleadoo of 
Tbcao res'.rlotlons were ibe problbidng of all 
sealing from Ik* let of Uty dll lb* In of 
Augon. tbe llmli'.ng ol (riling la Brbrlng flu 
to as area outside ol a iisty-mllt llmll from 
Iba lalaoda, aad to cvofioliig busdog IS 
»P*Jf) 

It WAS expect*} (hal It* terms of ibe Porta 
award nt ISfiJ would be txlended la Ike Japan- 
eae aod Ruatlaa waien. Ragland has b*«B at 
perslaleot to oppndog Ibla extension 
bat bseo lukewarm la execullaf lb* pearl- 
aloor of ibe award. 

Thoaxlcnaloo wa* ool made, and the regula¬ 
tions provided for by Ihe trbnnal aa carried 
ou; hire prorad of lltlle vulut far protection. 
Despite all obaUclr* aod regulation pslagle 
sealing aieadlly graw. raashhig Us graaian 
results lo Hfil. Ibo year Immediauly follow 
Ing Ibe award. Tbe only (hack which pelagic 
tea'.lag baa received la tbe oo* Inherent in ib* 
bosioos, oaircly. lb* destractlon of lb* ob¬ 
ject of pufault The clflclaucy of Ibe waling 
Octt ba* anuoallr locretacd. and reached Its 
maxlmam lo tbl* iruon of l**t. yo« tbe ctlcb 
bat waned M per real slot* 104 

In :tbl ibe total eatch tt am caa 0.000: la 
102. TJ.OOO: la IO» lOP.OOO. aod durleg ibc<* 
tbrea yrua Behring Sea wa* practically 
closed la ItM tba regulitlons baaed oa ibo 
Parla award otro la force, Debrlag gra waa 


rtesa tba grcotcat benefit from it. u< 
way baa Ibla carasrlacaa abawo lusll ma 
•rly ibaa In out parauieni. ibougb oft d«- 
f E, « “ a '«fiber lo- 

weadgadoa. la iba aawclloo of iba Amaricoa 
larastlgaior* and lo lb* broad aod 
lag insooer lo wblcb oar gnvrromaai ha* in¬ 
sisted tb* Inquiries aboil be corned oa. Not 
only ar* nor r«prws»audv*s Injirucled by lb* 
Praaldeai to umruio by pr*elM aad deulled 
ebxrradoa (1) th* preeeol eaadldea of (b* 
Amarlcaa teal herd: 111 tb* nature aad im 
mlncnce of (be emirs wblcb appear to ibru- 
*a IU •xlarvlaallos: U) benefit*. If any, wblcb 
bar* been *tcured to tba herd Ibrougb lb* reg- 
ulalloaa board upon ibe award of ibo Ptrla 
tribunal, oad (4) whai iddlilooal pratectlra 
meaaorea ara required U> Insure tba preaerra- 
don of Iba fur-Mi! herd; but tbe Congrta* 
boa amposrrad item to extend tbelr UF 


*Hb lha seals through hla position as iraaa> 
ary agent 

Thai It will readily bo ma (bat tba com* 
ilulaa la not a group of laymen, bul a band 
t m*o Chiefly composed af Ulined selcaUfia 
aboerrMA dawslnsied by tb* acleadfic Idea 
Md under the leadorshlp of a trained captain 
MlenUfic met b - 
oda of lorewdgidoo. not with a vl.w to uk. 
log out a e»M, bul Wlih tbr purpoM of an, 
irmai.rally ascwruialag and iruihfolli r*. 
cording wbalerar tinea la lo be obtained la 
tb* way of facu freltuoi Jordan la pro- 


pretmt fatlg togalbrr wlib On eoartu- 
iloxa derived from tbelr atudy QuuUudr* 
work of great value la being dose to pUeo 
** prev ious yaora, 


of Ue qnaodltdTo work « 



C B. Tnwaaead. Dr. F A Loom. George Claris. Secre¬ 
tary iua- 

Noste. U b S.. President D S Prof Darey Tboapsoo, 
bntroaa Jordan. Great Orlialn 

PUK-SP.AL COMMISSION. 

'Token oo Flab Commlaoloo Steamer A10*tro»a la OaotUskn Bay.) 


ItM. wblla Ibo iremoadso* t *ugb:*r of fa- 
males aud pup* was colog oa at aea! Ii baa 
allorad iba North American Commercial 
coatpaoy. Ib* loiiabsldtrt. to kill annually 
no average of leas lb an II,OM youag. Immature 
ma.aa only. »kes* services o*ro sat oeeoed 
oa ike bri*diag grouaiu. and whose death la 
r.a way afitcud th* diminution af tba b*rd 
l( Is oot apparial from Ibe avidroce furaiabcd 
by tb* Ufa binary of tb* seal aad lb* pelagic 
scaler him self tlui It* dcstnutloa af iba 
Nonbera furvcsl haa b*ec readily progrn- 
alrc. mil coadaue* oad Is directly due tu (bo 
'.odlterloilnoto slaughter ol Hi. Jolt aa thod>- 
iirucdao at iba Southern fur-seal was caused 
by lad'ccrtmlgai* kii'.lag aa land 
A* tb* acaler omplalai bliwrly ibxt bla 


tbal la. he Is dotraylci Ibe herd without 
eunliry advautaga lo bloiarlf. may It ao 
ibat hla eRortx will be greatly I esses *d la 


ala and tba Kurl.l Islands of Japan, sad 
placed lha steamer Alhairos* at tbtlr disposal 
for that purpose. So earnest of purpose and 
devoid ot norrowiivt* la our government lo 
Ibla matter Ibat lb* repreaenudve* of tin 
olb»r into fraud naiiou were isviled to carry 
nn tbelr work aide by aid* wllb our owe. Tbla 
Invitation «»a accrpicd by Great Brill 
Canada So tar si our own tmliorv u eoc- 
eeraad. tb* forelgo reprejaotntlvea bars 
beta given free y erenr oppor'.uoUy to -C- 
quaioi tbrmie.vea wllb Ibe subject and In 
repeat the observations ot pax years, Ihe only 
quaimcailno bring [hat their labors ba con¬ 
ducted lo a aplr/i nr fairness aad «llb a view 
lo Ibe praacmilno of ibe fur-oeol 
From lb-' aundpolnt of Ibe aeleellon of the 
American cepreicnlttlvcs. the tolled Suiea 
lu> don* In ISM wbai II would hare te*o 
well If It could have done when data were eol- 
oerrlal *v. Iccl'-'d for preaeoiadon before ih* Paris (rl 
bnojJ So ndataeiory nra ih* men chosen 
Ibal H would almost urn i» If ihelr 
bsd been secured ibrougb Inspiration ruber 

521 ^uJUPlKJiSJjSBSj: 


reallgidons lo IbeCeinmacder Islands of Rus- £dsro ihelr four months' labira ue ended 
(bey will not only have romplelaly carried 
ibelr luitruciiont. bul will bsve oblaloed 
u.s of maierlal nhlrh. If ool all lamedl- 
ulely applicable to tbe quiviloo al lvsu» will 
prove of luetiimsbln v.lue Jfur IBS, when, 
by 'be trraxs of ibo Peril j» ird ibe Iribuod e 
bodloga must come up for re* istoo 
Avellreg ibem selves ot ibe lovliadoo of tb* 
Hailed Slues, bul not commuting fbem- 
selv*a in anr wiy. Cagliod aeni t»o r»p- 
fesenlalltes and Canada one. io prosecula 
Ir vevllgal'no side by aide altb our repreaaol- 
elltea. Mr Darey Thompson, profesvor of 
nsiural blslory :n Duodeo I'mverXty of Scot¬ 
land. and Mr. Darrell Ifamlliuo. a joung 
tarrlsier and amsiror natural blsiory a(u- 


bad olapred after tba ap- 
p.lradoa lo 1194 of iba findings of Ike Parla 
tribunal lo Ibo conduct ef Ibe aesllag bud- 
non before iki aitloea Interfiled recognised 
ibelr Inefficteacy. Tbe Halted Slate* bad 
kept up continuous Inrcadgadoaa aloe* 1191, 
and immediately Invited iba aueadoo of 
Eng aod to tbs futility of Ib* regulation 
adopted She waa openly aod frankly skep¬ 
tical ot tba accuracy af Ibe facia preataled. 
and iba lauraidonal pal wbsto fierce ebulli- 
itooa It wot hoped arbitration would 
xtroy continued lo steadily aiiaiser. ted fio 


V trail)-, la s man of loot and c«efui 
ing In selendfic melbodL Ho poetesses u 
usually wide knowledge anil vxperlunee. 
an Ichthyologist of International repuie. ax. 
la Ibe recognised authority on lha Irctb- 
wator flakes of America In Industry be Is 
iireleu end tbe work of ibe summer has been 
pushed with chirgcierletlc rigor aod ability. 

President Jordon aad IsalsUi 
Flro assistant* bar* been asalgnod 
Profea»or Jordan lo hl» work. Dr Leonhard 
Slejneger of tb* Nidoaal Museum Is a on- 
urnllsi. wbaM n>me I* at well knonn abroad 
aa at home Ho Del year m«de ca crbAucdv# 



SEALS BUIKO Tl'RNCn BACK IXTO THE WATER. 


SCENES ON THE KILLING FIELD. 


houM, where they ore carefully sailed In 
keaebiw Plvo day* lllir Ibe akloi ora agaia 
overhauled aad mailed or ' booked." Tbca 
as tbo natives biro leLiura (bay 111 them up 
la nail boodles of taro *klna each aod si or* 
thorn la a oarebauao, ready tor sblpmeol lo 
flu* Francises, when lb* icnscm closet lo 
August. 

loilouadons at ta Irregularity In tbe m*a- 
ag*meoi of iRalrt oo lha laland* appear from 
lime to time. Noon aueb txutv Ereryiblog 
l» duo* lo atcordanea with annual loitructlom 
from ib* Treasury Uspanmaot. aad a govern 
raeni rrproacnladve la oa Ibe lalaola arery 
mlsulo of (b* year. Tho eklos nr* counted 
whan placed la aalt, couoled when ablppcd. 
and again counted in San Franciaco anil Lon- 


Kara ibay are aold. cured, dyed, and dlairlb- 
u(«d lo Ib* furriers of ibe world. Il is ib In¬ 
dustry farnlablog employme ii for buodeeds 
of arilsaoa aod lorolrtog rnimooa of dolUra, 
nod of *11 Urn oa lions lalercalod. aad all Ba¬ 
llons are. EogUed receive* tba greatest pa- 
euolary bcaeflt 

Tb* doffinbdtty of malnUInlog on laduslry 
tb* perpoiual preterTAdon and coadsnaoc* of 
wblcb la entirely pots lore will certainly com¬ 
mend Itsolf io all. but tbo pail year mark* a 
lurtber and dlalloci adTuco Hoag tba down 
grsda of eonusereia! extermlaadoa. from Iks 
earn* cauaa wblcb baa bees lo operation lor 
many yatra Tb* Prlbjlor Inlands were dta- 
eovored by lha Ronlaaa In 1IS7. and allbough 
ai first grossly mismanaged by killing bolb 


(brow a open under th* coadtdcoa noted, and 
Iba total pelagic eaicb increased la 142.MO. 
la 1I9S l( bad fallaa la 94.0M. and for tb* Tear 
jotl closed tt will ••( roach oas-balf af lb* 
eaieb of ItM. No rteoure* Is lb* way of d*- 
feoaa or axplaaadoo caa ba bad (o tb» theory 
of favicr veutla, lor. lakes In dolall. u la 
roand ibat ihlriy-eigit vcaaela ealrrrd Ik* 
Hebrlog Sea la 1*94, nod lerered II OMaklns; 
In IMS fifly-Mtsa veu*|i took 40,000 aklut, 
wbllo (hie y**r sevonly rettali. wllb to lo- 
eroAitd nurobar of bom to rack vesaol, will 
do well If they obtain 10.000 pelU. Olber lo- 
calldea turnlsb similar ttldesc*. 

fVfeco ibo Alatkan h*rd began (« ibow 
tllmluuUon, and eepcclally during ib* year* 
1991, UK, and U'4. when Bebrlag Sre waa 


last wiolcr aid spring It bubbled M rlgoreua y 
aod rnectlvfly (hal a mixed commlisloo (aoi 
a Joint ***). coodadag of aerco Amrrlcans. 
(wo Irttbmei. tad on* Caeadlaa, Is at pres 
Ml la aod about Bebrlag 8ea. busily coocerw- 
log itself wllb iba condition of tb* (or-aeat 
herd* oo bolb aldrs of Ib* Nonb Pieifle. 
In odilldoo lo lbl> Japan has repreasomirea 
Is Iba Bald, whom II la axpectod will co-op- 
ml* wllb such data aa ibay may bar* ob- 
xalnod. 

Oar lo tercet la the ladwaley, 
Daaplia (h* saver to Iba eoolrary of Hr. 
Cbgrlea Hilbert Tupper lo th* Nalloeil R»- 
vleir tor September, "lb* Colled Suita la 
bam upon prerentlag iba axdoelloo ot lit 
fur-aeal," regardless of lb* fact tbal F.oglaod 


study of lb* fur-oeaia of- tbs CowmABdo; 
Islaoda. and baa Jux publish*! bit resulU la 
tho form of as etaborals monograph Dr. F. 
A. Lures, also of tb* National Museum. Is un¬ 
surpassed la Ibe domain af eomparadrs os¬ 
teology. while Mr. C. IL Townsend uf lb* 
United States Flab Commission aad chltf nat¬ 
uralist of Ibo Albalroa probably baa a 
w ider aod more aoenrata kooe ledge of tba 
details of pelagic sealing Ibao any Mr Ing min. 
baring mad* * special alodr of It for a num¬ 
ber of yeara pul For obvious reasons Cap¬ 
tain Moser of tbo Albatron ra Included 
la lb* corps of atflliaoU. and Colonel Joseph 
Murray was named by (he Secretary of lb* 
Treasury oo account of bla long acquaintance 


and Mr. Jntwa M Macoum. bolaotat of tb* 
Canadian Geological Survey, and obo bad 
'Allied ibe islaoda lo previous yean, vtaa 

selected ao behalf of Canada 

Cwb destruction Dw Arrested f 
U will be seen from ibe foregoing ibal two 
agecdos of uncertain poltaev are now al 
sortc wblcb may play an ‘mporuoi pan lo de¬ 
laying ibe commercial extermination of ibo 
eeale oc even lo riayltg Ibe downward morw- 
ment. Il may b* found ibai pelagic sealing 
baa i cached ihe polnl lo destroying ib* erals 
ubleb marks Hi own downfall, or (bat a 
largir measure of protection. If oot entire 
Irqrauolty from stuck, may be tecured 
Ibrougb ib* Inairumi’Oiallly Of tbe present 
ccmralitloo, Those of ut who are moro or 
lees familiar tilth the course of e-eota. pact 
aod prexoi. indulge our topes that both 
farm will op«rato for tho future benefit of 
Ibe real, but do not express an ardent belief 
In ihcso sources of relief 

JOSEPH STANLET-BROWN. 


by joiin o. wnrmcii 


Fell ehrlore ef praji 


Orere hearts she leogkl. la slew rrtreok 
Tbe fiend el Are Iran slreec io tire*s. 
Turotd resellers le tb* Mladlog glue 


Sexk. irea Nerxb. 

. - --nb: 

-1 Ika eerertax wore 

Tb* SIMM rult-hxabed. reach rl u sat* 

rr-J Ike eld: t 
ihe dreary v< 

... - .(vr bomre then urar « rnsnwa 
For leva shell Uy each earner reuse 

te. elrtrken dty! From duo (brew 
IS athso taekrlolh X Iby so*. 

id build u Thebes u Ampbloa e Urals, 
i seogx at cheer Iby walla sgsix. 

>w ahitreX In Iby bat dlairsse 
Tb* primal Ul at aelflakoeu, 

I law Icv'sui rose la Uk* Iky pat 
The angel tf iba be-“ 



Wonted lo D* KanoL 
Judge—Then you plead guilty la robblag 
be house by daylight? 

Prisoner -No. yer boner; by skylight. 



OONALASKA BAY, SUMMER REND EZVOUS OF THE BEHRING SEA SEALING FLEET. 

From photograph taken from a flowery hillside a few days before the departure of the fleet for the season's sealing. Were the entire fleet present at least fifty schooners would appear here. At the picture’s left 
*|i the mouth of the harbor connecting; wtth Behring Sea. 


“The Fate of the Fur Seal" The Sunday Inter Ocean (Chicago, IL), October 4, 1894. 


317 









































































Pribilof Islands: The People 


Hoverson, Carl M. ( 1901 - 1982 ) 

Teacher and Radio Operator, St. Paul Island, 1936-1941 

Acting Agent and Storekeeper, December 1941-October 1942 

Storekeeper, Funter Bay, Alaska, June-December 1943 

Bureau of Fisheries, Agent and Caretaker, St. George Island, April 1944-1949 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Carl Hoverson was St. George agent and caretaker when the Pribilovians were repatriat¬ 
ed to their St. George Island home after being sent to Funter Bay during WWII. Eloquent 
descriptions of the Aleuts’ return appear in several works, such as Dean Kohlhoff’s When 
the Wind Was a River (pp. 148-149). Agent Hoverson accompanied the island’s Natives 
on the voyage home. The transport William L. Thompson first anchored at St. Paul Island 
during the evening of May 13, 1944, and because of rough water there it remained at St. 
Paul until the late evening of May 24, when it then traveled to St. George. During the in¬ 
terim, a group of men traveled to St. George to make ready as best as possible before the 
arrival of the larger community. 

The morning of May 19, a small advance working party left Village Cove [St. Paul Is.] 
aboard the escort vessel USCG ATLANTA, for St. George Island. The ATLANTA arrived 
at Garden Cove at noon. No landing could be made on the village side because of the rough 
sea [but] all passengers were ashore and had started for the village at 3 P.M. The ATLANTA 
left for St. Paul. 

The purpose of this small working party was to prepare the village for the arrival of the 
main group of people who were still aboard the transport anchored at St. Paul Island. 

Many tasks were accomplished in the space of a few days. It was necessary to cut through 
16 inches of ice before water could be pumped into the storage tanks. The wooden water- 
main was tapped in two places so that the frozen sections could be by-passed. Water was 
brought to the village through connected sections of garden hose so that the hot-water 
heating systems could be filled. Broken pipes and castings were repaired or replaced. 

Bidarrah covers were patched and placed on their frames, and repairs were made to 
disabled trucks so that cargo work could begin promptly as soon as the ship reached the 
island. Stoves were installed in various places. Fires were built in heaters and heating 
systems of all the houses so that the dwellings would be warm and dry for their incoming 
occupants. The light plants were tested and the cold storage system put into operation. 

At 10:30 P.M., May 24, the WILLIAM L. THOMPSON arrived off Village Landing [St. 

George] but, because of the rough sea, no cargo nor passengers could be taken ashore. 

Violent seas continued and it was not until May 27 that all of the people could be brought 
to land [at Zapadni]. 128 

Agent and Caretaker Hoverson’s annual report spoke with cautious optimism of the 
return. 

When the natives returned from their sojourn in southeastern Alaska, it was the attitude, in 
some quarters, that the people would be restless and discontented with their former mode 
of life and that they would leave or have an intense longing to leave for the comparatively 
larger sphere of activity in other regions again. 

Fortunately, this school of thought has proven to be without premise. The natives were 
happy to return to their home soil. None of them have expressed any desire to forsake 
their island for a precarious existence elsewhere. Many of them have been anxious and 


318 





Biographies H ♦ Hoverson 


concerned about their kinfolk who did not return with the rehabilitation group. They 
realize that, although there may not be quite the freedom of action, there is much greater 
security here. 

The native homes are clean and well-cared for, and the people are proud of their dwellings. 
Some of the houses are too congested, but this condition can be fully corrected only by the 
construction of additional residences. The inconvenience and lack of privacy caused by 
overcrowding has been alleviated, in some instances, by alterations. However, this is not 
the answer to the whole problem. 

The Women’s Sewing Club was reorganized early last fall, and this organization has been 
active and diligent. Their meetings are held in the sewing room of the School. 

Other forms of recreation or social activity have been:-skating, skiing, dancing, and 
basketball. Two of the men are particularly interested in photography. 

An effort was made to reorganize the Community Club but to no avail. The older men, who 
are now in the majority, were either tepid in their enthusiasm or ill-disposed towards the 
matter. The outcome of the discussion was that the club would be reorganized as soon as 
the young men return from the army. A community club is a valuable asset to a village such 
as this. It is an organization where, among other things, civic problems are discussed and 
acted upon; it can be a powerful influence for progress and public good. 

Seventeen of the St. George native men are now in the Armed Forces. The absence of so 
many not only severely reduces the size of the working gang but cripples social life of the 
island. It is probable that more of the boys will be inducted before the war terminates. 

The general health of the village has been much better than it was at Funter, where living 
conditions were depressive. 



Group in dining room including Mr. and Mrs. Stacy (1, 2); ? (3); Thelma and Richard 
Hellbaum (4, S); Geneva and Mrs. Hoverson (6, 7); Vivien Oberg (8); Dr. Samuel 
Berenberg (9); Father Makary Baranov (10); Carl Hoverson (11); Fredericka Martin 
holding Tobyanne (12, 13); Roy Hurd (14); Earl Oberg (IS). (Fredericka Martin 
Photograph Coll., 91-223-13, Archives, Alaska and Polar Regions Coll., Rasmuson 
Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.) 


319 









Pribilof Islands: The People 


The disposition of the people is good. This is reflected in the interest taken in the 
improvement of their houses and the attitude towards the work of the island. There have 
been difficulties and vexing problems to be faced and solved, but such are incident to every 
community. 129 

Hoverson’s annual report continued with “Comments and Recommendations,” in¬ 
cluding: 

St. George Island was vacated by its inhabitants for a period of almost two years. 

Deterioration coupled with abuse of equipment in that space of time has resulted in a huge 
backlog of repair work. As stated before, the exterior of every building in the village needs 
paint, roads are in bad shape, and machinery is in a precarious condition. 

Before the people were evacuated, every truck had been overhauled and was in good shape. 

At the beginning of rehabilitation, not a truck on the place was in serviceable condition. 

The vehicles had been used roughly during the army occupancy and what repair work had 
been done was no longer apparent. 

Twice this past winter cargo was handled at Zapadni. There is no dock at this place nor 
[are] there any boat ways for launching the lighters [bidarrahs]. Boxes, crates, and other 
items of freight have to be pulled and pushed across the rocks. Containers break open and 
goods are damaged.... The construction of a dock and boat ways at this location is sorely 
needed.... 

Additional native houses have become a necessity. Three of the residences now house 
two families, each. Two families living in a four or five-room house with no basement 
nor upstairs results in over-crowding, lack of privacy, discontentment, and irritability. 

Marriages are contemplated by several of the native soldiers when they return after their 
service in the Army. At least six new native houses should be constructed. 

To relieve the congestion, some of the present native dwellings have had a room built into 
the upstairs. Such a room is not always so satisfactory because of the low-gabled roofs. 

When additional houses are built the pitch of the roof should be steeper. The building 
should be a four-room affair with an upstairs room and cement basement. 130 



Crew of first B-18 Bolos bomber to land on St. Paul Island, 1943. (Alaska State Library, 
Evan Hill Photograph Coll., P343-374.) 


320 






Crowd of pilots and military platoon returned from St. George Island gathered by the marine railway, 
St. Paul Island, August 1943. (Alaska State Library, Evan Hill Photograph Coll., P343-381.) 



Servicemen loading mail onto a B-18 Bolos bomber, St. Paul Island, circa 1943. (Alaska State Library, 
Evan Hill Photograph Coll., P343-335.) 


321 





Men camouflaging observation post no. 2 (possibly on Black Bluffs), St. Paul Island, July 1943. (Alaska 
State Library, Evan Hill Photograph Coll., P343-362.) 



Captain Bayer sleeping on a couch, St. Paul 
Island, circa 1943. (Alaska State Library, Evan 
Hill Photograph Coll., P343-390.) 


322 











Evan Hill in a 20-mm gun pit at the airfield, 
St. Paul Island, July 1943. (Alaska State 
Library, Evan Hill Photograph Coll., P343- 
343.) 


Military personnel during bayonet practice 
using a reindeer as a target, St. Paul Island, 
circa 1943. (Alaska State Library, Evan Hill 
Photograph Coll., P343-493.) 



Military personnel horsing around, St. Paul Island, circa 1943. (Alaska State Library, Evan Hill 
Photograph Coll., P343-377.) 


323 




Pribilof Islands: The People 



Lieutenant Pusey holding a camera with Saints Peter and Paul Church in the background. St. Paul 
Island, 1943. (Alaska State Library, Evan Hill Photograph Coll., P343-395.) 


Howes, Osborn(e) Jr. ( 1846-1907) 

Sealer, St. George Island, 1868 
Editor, Boston Herald 

Genealogy 

Osborn(e) Howes Jr. was born December 8, 1846, at Yarmouth, Massachusetts, the son 
of Boston shipping merchant Captain Osborn Howes (1806-1893) and Abigail Kelley 
(Cowell) Howes. Howes Jr. married Grace Bartow, twenty-four-year-old daughter of John 
and Catherine Bartow, at Buffalo, New York, February 3, 1875. The marriage was re¬ 
corded both in Boston and in Buffalo, New York, with the change in the spelling from 
“Osborn” to “Osborne.” Osborne and Grace Howes had four children born at Boston: 
Osborne III, born August 6, 1877 (d. 1934), married Mildred Cox, daughter of William 
Emerson Cox and Josephine (Nickerson) Cox; Natalie, born November 3,1880, died 1889; 
Gretchen, born March 2, 1884, married Charles Sidney on October 1 , 1907, at Brookline, 
Massachusetts; and Kenneth, born January 11, 1886, married Edith Forbes Perkins on 
January 21, 1922, at Framingham, Massachusetts. Osborn(e) Howes Jr. died April 9, 1907, 
in Brookline, Massachusetts. 131 


324 





Biographies H ♦ Hoverson - Howes 


Biography 

The Howes family had settled about 1635 on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where the fam¬ 
ily s sea captains became well known. By 1818, with the Howes family settled in Boston, a 
young Osborn Sr. began sailing on merchant ships for Thomas B. Curtis. In 1840, “Osborn 
Howes of Boston, the first American captain to set foot in Turkey, formed with his broth- 
er-in law the firm of Howes & Crowell, trading with China, Western Europe, California, 
and Australia. 132 The shipping house of Howes & Crowell was known for twenty-five 
years as “one of the leading firms in that business in the United States.” 133 By 1875, Osborn 
Howes Jr. added the letter “e” to Osborn(e). We can only assume he did so to eliminate 
confusion after he became involved in the family business. 

In 1868, while in California on business for his father, Osborn Jr. was hired by Parrott 
Company of Connecticut as supercargo on a whaling vessel headed to Alaska. He de¬ 
scribed his Alaska experiences in articles titled “The Fur Seal Fishery in Alaska” and “An 
Adventure in the Behring Sea.” He would later become editor of the Boston Herald, a 
lawyer, and a leading businessman of Boston. 134 

On April 10, 1907, the New York Times printed an obituary for Osborn Howes Jr. that 
read in part: 

Osborn Howes, Secretary of the Boston Board of Fire Underwriters, Japanese Consul for 
this city, and a well-known newspaper man, died.... Mr. Howes made a particular study of 
municipal government and was one of the special committee in 1884 which prepared the 
present city charter. He was a life-long Democrat and on several occasions unsuccessfully 
contested the Senatorial seat in Brookline. 135 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Osborne Howes Jr. wrote of his experiences in the Pribilof Islands: 

I left San Francisco early in March on board a schooner cleared by Messrs. Parrott & Co. 
of that city, for a trading voyage in Bering Sea and the coast of Kamchatka. It was the first 
vessel to reach the island, arriving at St. George, in the latter part of April. I was landed 
with the goods, and the schooner continued on her voyage toward the coast of Kamchatka. 

I immediately secured possession of the salt house and the services of the natives for the 
season. 

In a few days a schooner representing the firm of Hutchinson, Kohl, & Co. also landed 
representatives on St. George Island. Not long after the arrival of this second schooner 
a third, in the interest of the firm of Williams & Haven, landed men on the opposite side 
of the island, at Zapadni rookery. This firm had headquarters on St. Paul Island. It was 
impossible for these separate interests to carry on their operations independently, and 
they therefore placed their business under my charge. Drives were made alternately for the 
different companies and the natives employed in turn. 

Before the season was well under way a fourth expedition was landed on the south side of 
the island across the point from East rookery. There were three men in the party, and they 
set about killing the seals on the rookery without driving them. The natives objected to 
this because it involved the killing of females. The men were remonstrated with, but were 
obdurate. One was bribed off by the promise of double wages, but the other two continued 
their work. They were finally taken prisoners and sent off to Sitka by the first schooner that 
touched at the island. With them were returned the men brought from Sitka, who were 
found to be unsuited for the work. When the captain of the schooner whose men were 
interfered with arrived in the fall for his cargo of skins he was pacified by being allowed to 


325 







Pribilof Islands: The People 

take the results of one big drive made by the natives 
for his benefit. 

The work of the sealing was carried out by 
the natives under the direction of their chief. 
Representatives of the different companies did not 
concern themselves with the work of driving or 
killing. They simply paid the natives so much per 
skin—30 to 35 cents—payment being made in trade 
goods. The natives evidently followed the traditions 
of earlier days in their work. They seemed very 
jealous and careful of the seals, avoiding any 
disturbance of the breeding grounds. Their 
objection to the methods of killing on East rookery 
was based upon the ground that if the females were 
killed there would be no seals in the years to come. 

Most of the seals killed were taken from North 
rookery and Zapadni. No drives were made from 
Staraya Artel. Only occasional drives were made 
from East rookery. All the animals were killed on 
the ground below the village. 

Each man knocked down his own allowance of 
seals and skinned them afterwards. Sixty was 
considered the usual day’s work for a man. The 
rule of the companies was that skins too small, too 
large, or cut would not be accepted or paid for. The 
sealers were therefore very careful in the work. A 
day’s killing averaged from 800 to 1,800. There were 
about thirty available men among the natives. 

Of the conditions on St. Paul I heard only indirectly 
through the representatives of Williams & Haven, 
who in their work were evidently directed by 
instruction from the head station on St. Paul, where 
the same methods were probably employed. The Williams & Haven and Hutchinson, Kohl 
& Co.’s interests were supreme on St. Paul, and they divided the rookeries between them. 

To the best of my recollection 115,000 were taken on St. George and 250,000 on St. Paul 
during the season. 136 

From its timing and contents we believe an unsigned article, “An Adventure in 
Behring Sea,” printed in the New York Times on August 4, 1872, was written by Osborne 
Howes Jr. Whether fact or fiction as regards its central life-and-death narrative, it is grip¬ 
ping and wonderfully descriptive. 

AN ADVENTURE IN BEHRING SEA 

In the spring of 1868, the territory formally known as Russian America was ceded to the 
United States, and all the trading privileges which before had been held by the Russian 
American Fur Company, were thrown open to the world. Little was known of the country 
even in our Pacific sea ports; true, the Western Union Telegraph Company had explored 
certain parts of it in their attempt to open communication with Asia, but they had confined 
themselves more to its geographical bearings than its resources; American whalers, in their 
cruises after oil had entered every gulf and bay on its coast; but as they had been debarred 
from landing except when in need of wood and water, their knowledge beyond that of 
locality, was extremely slight. Of course many reports were in circulation respecting the 
wonderful quantity and quality of the furs obtained there, but all of them of a vague and 


JOHN PARROTT 
1810 —1884 

An early stockholder in the Alaska Commercial Com¬ 
pany; merchant and hanker. In 1852 he built the 
granite building at the corner of California and 
Montgomery streets in San Francisco. 

John Parrott, President of Parrott & 

Co., New London, Connecticut. (Samuel 
P. Johnston, 1940, Alaska Commercial 
Company 1868-1940). 



326 




Biographies H ♦ Howes 


uncertain character; however, the people of the coast and of San Francisco in particular, 
quickly prepared to take advantage of any opening that might show itself; merchants began 
fitting out small vessels to trade there; old miners who had “done” California and Nevada, 
gathered their traps together for a prospecting tour to this new field of enterprise; land 
speculators hurried to stake out claims near the little towns of Sitka and Kodiak; needy 
adventurers by the score crowded every means of transportation, most of them careless or 
ignorant of future prospects, but going in the hope that some good would come of it. 

A desire to see the world, which had already taken me over the greater portions of it, 
landed me in the Winter of the above year in San Francisco. Whatever wish I may have 
had to remain permanently in that delightful place was quickly taken out of my head when 
the opportunity presented itself of going to the unknown northern region. The way in 
which this happened was as follows: A number of gentlemen had fitted out a schooner, 
the Katie for a sealing and trading voyage but just as she was on the point of departure the 
supercargo [manager of a vessel’s cargo] was taken sick and they had to delay sailing until 
they could find someone to fill his place. Hearing of this, I offered my services and though I 
possessed but few of the requirements necessary for the situation I was accepted as the best 
substitute they could readily obtain. 

Why describe the sea voyage? They are all very similar; the alternation of wind and calm; 
the ineffable glories of a sunrise; the quenching as it were of the molten orb in the water at 
evening; the golden pathway made by the moon across the restless sea; all of these can be 
seen in any vessel and in any clime. Let it suffice, therefore, to say that on the 2nd of May, 
after a fair run of three weeks, we came to anchor off the island of St. George, in the south 
eastern portion of Behring Sea. It had been a foggy day, but the wind had partially cleared 
the air, and we could see quite plainly the outline of the jagged cliffs and wild hilltops 
covered with snow. 

It was our intention to erect a station on this island, enter into an agreement with the 
natives, and thereby, being the first comers, secure a monopoly of the fur seals which come 
there yearly in large numbers. In carrying out our design we were eminently successful, and 
finding that this was to constitute the principal part of our business, I concluded to let the 
schooner make the rest of the voyage (which was to extend to the coast of Siberia) without 
me, and to stay on the island in order to more effectually superintend the business; so, 
having landed a large quantity of goods and provisions, the schooner prepared to take her 
departure. 

It was a mournful day to me, when, having bade the captain and their interpreter good- 
by, I saw them row out through the surf, and watched them until they disappeared in the 
eddying mist, which had already hidden the Katie from sight. They were not to return 
until the latter part of November, nearly seven months, and it would be difficult for the 
reader to realize the feeling of loneliness that now took possession of me. I was entirely 
isolated, having no one with whom I could associate but the native Aleuts, whose language 
I understood but very imperfectly. However, there was nothing to do but to make the 
best of it and I therefore determined to thoroughly survey the island, as a means of 
occupying my mind for two or three weeks until the seals should begin to arrive. Though 
but a small place, it was certainly a wild one; centuries of rough change by the elements 
had so diversified its naturally irregular outlines as to leave it one mass of steep hills 
interconnected by long dark valleys. With the exception of three or four little strips of 
beach, high cliffs best led out over the water at almost every point, and into the rocky 
caverns at their base the sea clashed and thundered with a perpetual roar. So rocky was the 
soil that I could not find even a shrub, though in the Summer months long rank grasses 
grow everywhere in great abundance. Overhead hung almost a perpetual fog-bank, making 
the day well nigh as gloomy as the night; sometimes the mists would scatter for a day or 
two and I could see far across the water to the northward the tops of the hills on the island 
of St. Paul, another seal-island considerably larger than St. George. 

The natives were very kind and good-natured; every day they would go far across the hills 
and return laden with different kinds of game or with eggs of sea-fowl, which they obtained 


327 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


by being lowered a hundred feet or more down the face of the cliff, and would always bring 
them to me in order that I might have the first choice. I soon became well acquainted with 
all the inhabitants upon the island; attended the little receptions they gave upon their 
“name’s day”, as it is called by the Russians; acted as godfather for their children when 
they were christened—for all the Aleutians are members of the Greek Church—on which 
occasions I yet further endeared myself to them by keeping “open house” and providing an 
unlimited amount of tea, sugar and crackers for their entertainment. When the seals came 
there was work enough to do; what with driving, killing, salting and packing, keeping store, 
acting as governor, doctor and adviser. I had my time fully taken up; and so months went 
by, the seasons passed over, and I began counting the weeks that must elapse before the 
Katie would return to take on board the large lot of furs we had collected and stored in the 
Lefka (hut made of earth) on the beach. 

One night in the middle of October I was awakened from my sleep by someone coming 
into my little cabin and roughly shaking me by the shoulder. Starting up, I saw by a strange 
glare of light that seemed to fill the room, the Nirachie, or head native on the island. He 
made an ineffectual attempt to speak and pointed with his hand to the window, while his 
face wore an expression of inevitable fear and consternation. In an instant I was at the 
window; both heaven and earth seemed one blaze of light, and for a moment, I thought 
that the old volcano, which had slumbered for ages beneath the island, had again started to 
life. A second glance, however, brought to my mind the hardly more deniable conviction, 
that the storehouse, containing our entire supply of provisions and the adjoining outhouses 
filled with salted seals which the natives had prepared for their Winter’s sustenance, were 
wrapped in a sheet of flame. 

Now that two years had passed, and I am sitting in my quiet library writing this, I cannot 
recall my feelings at that moment without experiencing a thrill of horror. A bitter cold gale 
blew from the north, laden with the inevitable mist, which though it prevented the fire 
from being seen at any distance, served by its refractions to fill with redoubled intensity of 
light the little space in which it was visible. 

When I reached the spot the natives had all arrived, but too terror-stricken for motion, 
were stupidly gazing at the great surging flames, which they now beheld for the first time in 
their lives. Of custom, my first cry was for water. We were wholly unprepared for anything 
of this kind; the pond from which we obtained our supply of fresh water was more than 
half a mile distant and it was, therefore, out of the question to go there; the sea, however 
was within 300 yards of the building, but in order to reach it, it was necessary to descend 
a steep narrow path, leading down the side of a cliff, difficult during the day, but at night 
dangerous. Still it must be done and in less than two minutes I had all the inhabitants of 
the village—men, women and children—with the exception of three or four of the older 
men, whom I kept to assist me in breaking out some of the goods, dispatched to obtain the 
precious liquid. 

All our exertions proved wholly futile; the fire, when discovered, was under too great 
headway to be subdued by any of the rude appliances we could command, and with the 
exception of three boxes of hard bread, which I succeeded to breaking out, the entire 
building, with outhouses and contents was reduced to a smoldering heap before our eyes. 

It was about 3 o’clock in the morning when I told the natives, who now that the first 
excitement had passed, were making loud lamentations that they had better go to their 
homes and get rested, and that I would tell them after I had had time to think it over, what 
had best be done. For me it was no time for resting; my mind was well nigh paralyzed 
by the sudden calamity that had overtaken me, and it was long before I could collect my 
thoughts sufficiently to give the subject reasonable consideration. What was to be done! 
Both seals and birds had left us for their Winter’s sojourn in a milder climate—fish there 
were none, for the seals had driven them away—there was absolutely nothing on the island 
that we could use for food. 


328 




Biographies H ♦ Howes 


The natives had made their weekly purchase of provisions five days before, and I knew from 
their natural improvidence that they could not have more than two days ordinary supply 
on hand; in my own house I had enough to keep them for three or four days more—but 
what then? The Katie would not return for five weeks and head winds might delay her two 
or three weeks longer. What were we to live upon in the meantime! We must certainly go 
to St. Paul, which was the only settlement within attainable distance to procure food; but 
then the equally perplexing question arose, how should we get there? St. Paul was only 
forty miles away and in good weather, with an ordinary ship’s boat, I should have thought 
nothing of the trip; but at this season of the year fair weather was exceptionable and our 
only means of conveyance was a bidara or Aleutian skin-boat. This was a large ungainly 
craft, being about as symmetrically formed as a child’s Noah’s ark. It was made of a rude 
framework of drift-wood and whalebone covered with the skins of the sea-lion, which had 
been dried in the sun and sewn together; it was about thirty feet long, by twelve foot beam, 
and propelled by oars, yet carried a small square sail to be used when the wind was directly 
aft. On discharging our vessel we had found it very useful but though very seaworthy when 
newly oiled, after it had been in the water a few hours the skin covering became damp 
and rotten, so that a very slight pressure would break it; yet this was the only means of 
transportation we had, and go we must. 

In the morning I assembled all the natives, and having told them the plan I had decided 
upon, made them bring all the food they had in their houses which with what I had, I 
placed under the charge of the Nirachie in order that regular rations might be served out 
and nothing wasted. It required sixteen men to man the bidara, and, that no hard feeling 
might be created, I let the able-bodied men of the village, amounting altogether to forty, 
draw lots in order to see which of them should go on the expedition. Having decided this, 
and seen that the best was put in proper condition for the trip, I sat down and wrote a letter 
containing a statement of our misfortune to the Captain of the Katie so that in case we 
should never return, and upon his arrival he should find no one alive upon the island, he 
might know the cause of it; and I also told him that he would find the furs in the Lefka all 
right. 

Our wish now was for a moderately pleasant day, in order to start; and luckily for us we 
did not have to wait long, for the next morning brought us an unusually calm sea, with a 
light breeze from the South. Parting kisses and blessings were given, and we were soon off, 
steering directly for our destination, and going as fast as wind and oar could carry us. It was 
a delightful day, the wind staying by us and aiding us so that at four o’clock in the afternoon 
we landed on the island whose dark cliffs we had seen for hours rising higher and higher 
out of the blur sea. There were several American companies on the island, and as they 
had an abundant supply of provisions, I found no difficulty in obtaining all I wished; so we 
worked late into the night in getting them from the storehouse down to the landing, that 
we might be in readiness to start by daylight, our skin-boat having been dried and oiled in 
the meantime. 

It was some time after midnight when, just as I was on the point of bidding my entertainers 
good-night, and seeking an hour or two of rest, one of my men, named Evan Switzoff, a 
favorite of mine, came to me and said he would like to have me come to the church, as he 
was about to be married. It seemed that he had been engaged to an Aleutian girl on St. 

Paul, Natalia by name, for three years, and that the present was the first time during this 
period that he had had an opportunity of seeing her, and though there was a dangerous 
trip home in anticipation, neither of them was willing to allow so excellent an occasion 
for consummating their long-postponed happiness to pass by unnoticed. I endeavored to 
point out the danger to which he was exposing her by so doing, but though I might have 
convinced him, I found that argument was entirely wasted upon her, and so gave it up. 

The little church was brilliantly lighted by numerous wax candles of all sizes from an 
immense one six feet long and a foot in diameter down to the thin tapers which some of 
the natives carried in their hands. The bride was wonderfully arrayed, considering the 
place and the short notice she had received, being resplendent in a very light nicely-fitting 


329 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


calico dress, with crinoline, a little white bonnet and a net of imitation coral jewelry; but 
the acme of style was reached through a pair of green kid gloves, in which the fair one 
had imprisoned her hands for the first time. Beside this “glass of fashion”, poor Evan in 
his pea-jacket made but a sorry appearance; however, love seemed to overcome all those 
minor difficulties, and after a long service, rendered wearisome by perpetual bowings, 
but redeemed by beautiful chanting, they were pronounced man and wife, and the whole 
company went to the bride’s father’s to partake of such refreshment as he might provide, 
after which I, at least, sought my much-needed rest. 

The next day was also a fine one; the sun rose on a perfectly calm sea, and, having bade our 
kind friends adjou [sic], we slowly rowed our now heavily laden boat out of the little harbor. 
Hour after hour passed by, and though we did not progress as rapidly as when the boat was 
empty, we still went along at a very good rate of speed, and St. Paul was becoming more 
and more faint in the distance. Owing to the immense amount of labor, both mental and 
physical, I had performed during the past few days, and the very small quantity of rest, I 
had been able to obtain, I felt very tired, and about noon seeing that all was going on well, I 
stretched myself out on a pile of boxes so that I might get a little sleep The sun was shining 
with unprotected supremacy, and I put my handkerchief over my face to protect it from the 
unwanted heat. The men were pulling easily; Natalia was seated by her husband, and, just 
as I dropped off I heard her singing an old Russian song the burden of which was, “Cooreet 
tropka tobacco" 

I must have slept several hours, for when some one awoke me a great change had taken 
place. The sun was completely lost to sight by dark thick folds of fog which intervened, and 
though there was as yet but little wind our boat rose and fell on each wave of a long heavy 
swell that came rolling toward us from the northward, which I instantly recognized as the 
precursor of one of our fierce gales. 

The steersman estimated that we must be about eight miles from St. George; and though 
he had been steering by compass for an hour or two since the fog settled down on us, 
he seemed to be rather uncertain in precisely what direction our Island lay. Taking the 
large oar by which the boat’s course was directed, I sent the former helmsman forward to 
help row; and having made an estimate by the wind, the compass and my predecessor’s 
approximations as to what our course should be, I headed the boat in that direction, and 
trusted to good fortune for a favorable result. 

Time passed away, night came on, but we saw no signs of the island. In vain we strained 
our eyes over the white caps, which were now beginning to crest the waves; no sight of 
land was vouchsafed to us, only a great dread darkness on every hand. This soon became 
so intense that I could not see the oarsman nearest to me; still they pulled on until one 
of them cried in a wild hopeless way, “We have passed by the Island!” thus giving verbal 
utterance to a fear I had felt but had not dared to express. The rowers stopped and our 
boat losing headway, swung heavily round into the trough of the sea. After a few moments 
deliberation my mind was made up. Our only chance of escape was, if possible, to lay where 
we were until the morning, and then endeavor to find the island; so I headed the boat into 
the wind, and still having three or four men row easily to keep her from drifting, let the 
others take any manner of rest they had the heart for. 

But what a night it was! The wind increased every hour, and to add to our misery, about 
midnight our boat began to leak; first in one, and then in two, three, four and five places in 
quick succession, while at each lurch the slender framework would bend and twist as if it 
would break and let our boat fall apart. There was no help for it—some of our goods must 
be thrown overboard; so clothing, sugar and tea were quickly passed over the side, and 
went surging along to the leeward. This lightened the boat; but every half hour showed a 
new leak to be stopped, while all the men were kept steadily at work rowing, or bailing out 
the water that came in torrents over the bow and sides. 


330 




Biographies H ♦ Howes 


At last the day began to dawn, but none too soon, for it was evident to me that we could 
not keep above water another hour. With the growing light the fog also lifted for a time, 
and to our great delight we saw the Island of St. George under our lee, only about a mile off. 

The shouts of joy from the natives were, however, quickly changed to cries of despair, when 
they saw the long line of breakers which, beginning a quarter of a mile or so from the shore, 
swept in huge white waves with irresistible force upon the beach. 

If we were to land, we must do so here. To go around to the leeward side of the island while 
such a gale was blowing would have been absolutely impossible, even had our boat been in 
good condition; as it was, we should sink before we had made a tenth of the distance. To 
row in over the surf would result in complete destruction of our boat, cargo, and most, if 
not all, of our lives; those reaching the shore having only a lingering death by starvation to 
look forward to; remaining where we were was equally certain death. For the first time in 
all my troubles I lost heart entirely. “And this, thought I, is the end of all my planning, to 
perish miserably when within sight of the destination!” 

It was at this moment of universal despair that Evan Switzoff prompted to mental exertion 
more by the presence of a loved one than by any fear of personal danger suggested carrying 
a surf-line to the shore and by its aid thought that the boat might be safely taken through 
the breakers. Surf lines are often used whenever it is necessary for boats to land on an 
unsheltered beach. It is merely a strong rope securely fastened to a buoy outside of the 
breakers, and thence carried through them to the land, where it is also fastened; a boat 
wishing to reach the shore goes to the buoy, and the rope having been taken on board, two 
men stand at the bows, and two at the stern, and pull her through the surf stern forward, 
in much the way small ferry-boats used to be taken across our Western rivers; but should 
the men by any mischance loose their hold of the rope, the boat will instantly swing round 
and capsize. It is a dangerous method, but far preferable to landing without it, which in the 
present case was impossible. 

The idea was cheerfully received—but who was to take the line ashore? One suggested that 
it be fastened round a box, and that the waves would carry it to the beach, where we could 
see that the inhabitants of the village had now assembled, and that they would understand 
what it meant, and would fasten the line. In an instant the natives had sized a box, and had 
secured a line round it preparatory to throwing it over. But I crushed their short-lived hope 
by telling, what was an only too obvious fact, that there was but little chance of the box 
ever reaching the small strip of beach; in all probability it would be dashed to pieces on the 
long line of rocks which stretched for miles on either side, in which case their friends on 
shore would never think of looking for a line; and should the trial meet with such an end, 
we could not keep afloat long enough to make another, I ended by asking for a volunteer to 
undertake the dangerous work. 

A short, though seemingly long silence followed my words, each one looking at his 
neighbor in the hope that he would speak; though, for my part, the danger in remaining 
seemed fairly as great as that of going and I would willingly have volunteered had I known 
how to swim. At last the silence was broken by a cry from Natalia, as Evan started up 
and began throwing off his clothes while the rest of the men, as if released from some 
enchantment, fell to work bailing out the water which during their delay had increased so 
much that it threatened to sink us instantly. 

We were now just outside of the breakers, so we let go the anchor, and Evan, kissing the 
weeping Natalia, and grasping my hand as I fastened a line round his body, was off. Over 
the waves he went, now lost and now appearing; holding his head high up while the line 
which I had ready was paying out, dragged loosely behind. The people on the beach seemed 
to have seen him, for they went a little way into the surf, ready to seize him when he should 
come near. All went well, and he was within one hundred yards of the beach when a huge 
wave, which had well nigh swamped us, rushed in upon him towering up a deceitful mass 
of curling foam. He was so far away that I could not see what took place, but know, by the 
rapidity with which the line ran through my hands that some accident had befallen him. 


331 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


Soon we saw the natives rush into the water, and a moment after return and go higher up 
the beach. Then the stress upon the line, which for a time had eased, was renewed, and 
feeling certain that they must have the other end, I made mine taut to a stronger rope, 
of which, thank fortune, we had an abundance, and launched it over the side. In about 
ten minutes there was a great waving of coats and hats on the beach—a signal, we took 
it, that the rope had been received and made fast; so, hauling it in as tightly as we could, 
we secured it with a buoy to the hawser of the anchor, and cut ourselves loose. It needed 
all our strength and skill and even with that we were a dozen times on the very verge of 
destruction. But a good Providence willed it otherwise; for in a few minutes our keep 
touched lightly upon the sand, a hundred hands seized our gunwale on both sides and we 
were run high and dry upon the beach. 

That was indeed a joyful greeting. How many times I was embraced and kissed by men, 
women and children I cannot tell, and should be ashamed to if I could; but in all this I 
missed Evan’s face and my first inquiry was for him. Having at length received a coherent 
direction, I ran to the little hut on the beach, where I was told he lay. But I was not the 
first; poor Natalia, I found her kneeling over the cold, wet body of her husband, trying by 
rubbing his face with her hands, and by kissing to bring him back to life. I feared there 
was no hope, still a moment after I was hurrying up the hill to my house to procure some 
stimulants. It was useless; he had been neglected too long; and in humble likeness to One 
far greater, had saved our lives at the cost of his own. 

My memory will lose much that it holds dear before I forget the sweet harmony of those 
old Slavonian [sic] chants one of rejoicing and one of sorrow, which the men sang as they 
stood around the little hut now, alas, containing a double sacrifice. 

The rest may be briefly told. By strict economy the reduced provisions we had succeeded 
in bringing from St. Paul proved more than sufficient. The Katie arrived in due season, 
landing abundant supplies, and taking on board in return the furs we had collected. With 
the event my banishment ended, and on the 2nd of December, just seven months after my 
arrival, from the deck of our schooner, we hurried southward, I saw the mist gather round 
that lone little island for the last time. 137 


Huggins, Lt. Eli Lundy (1842-1929) 

U.S. Army Lieutenant in charge of Seal Islands, 1870 
Genealogy 

Eli Lundy Huggins was born August 1, 1842, in Schuyler County, Illinois, son of the 
Reverend Alexander Gilliland Huggins and Lydia (Pettijohn) Huggins. While stationed 
at Kodiak, Alaska, Eli Huggins had a liaison with Alexandra (Aleksandra) Kashevarov (b. 
May 15,1846), daughter of Ivan (Ioann) Kashevarov and Elisaveta (Elizaveta) Grigor'evna 
Klimovskoi. 138 A son, Zinovii (Zenoa, Zenoah) Alexander “Zeno” Kashevarov Huggins 
(aka Rufus Huggins), 139 was born to Alexandra on October 8, 1870 (d. May 31, 1955), just 
as Eli was to leave St. Paul Island. The son, who first lived with a relative of his father in 
California, became an artist and having married a French woman lived most of his adult 
life in France. Eli Huggins died October 22, 1929, at San Diego, California. 140 

Biographical Sketch 

Eli Huggins had a prestigious forty-year military career which he began July 5, 1861, at 
the age of eighteen, as an enlisted man in the 2nd Minnesota Infantry. He fought in nu- 


332 






Biographies H ♦ Howes - Huggins 


merous Civil War battles, including Mill Springs, 
Chapel Hill, and Chickamauga. He was awarded 
the Medal of Honor on April 1, 1880, for distin¬ 
guished gallantry in action against the Oglala 
Sioux Indians at the battle of O’Fallon’s Creek, 
Montana. He kept a journal, wrote poetry, and 
was fluent in the Sioux and Russian languages. 
Huggins’ military career ended with his appoint¬ 
ment as brigadier general on February 22, 1903. 

Pribilof Islands Experience 



Eli Lundy Huggins, a first lieutenant with Battery 
G of the 2nd U.S. Artillery, 141 landed at St. Paul 
Island on June 13, 1870, with one sergeant, two 
corporals, and nine solders from Fort Kodiak, 
Alaska. The Army sent Huggins and his men to 
the islands to ensure protection of the govern¬ 
ment’s fur-seal interests, along with the safety and 


-> * 


Eli Lundy Huggins. (Library of Congress- 
LC-USZ62-132220.) 


welfare of the islands’ Natives. Lt. Huggins was in command on the Pribilofs for three 
months, until September 10, 1870. 142 During his stay he wrote at least two letters and a 
note to his sisters Fannie and Hattie, who were living in California. The Bancroft Library 
at the University of California, Berkeley, has conserved the two letters and note. They are 
presented here courtesy of the Bancroft Library. 


Saint Paul Island Alaska 
July 25, 1870 

My dear Fannie: 

I sent by the steamer "Alexander” which sailed for San Francisco last week, a letter to Jane, 
and 100 dollars. Since then nothing worthy of note has occurred to me except a Journey 
to Walrus Island sixteen miles from here. It was a cold dreary trip in an open boat, but I 
was well paid for it. Besides myself were Count Veritenikoff and five natives who rowed the 
boat. When we left here at three o’clock in the morning we hoped to sail most of the way, 
but the wind being contrary the natives had to row most of the way. We arrived at Walrus 
Island at nine in the morning. The Island is half a mile long and an eighth of a mile in 
width. At this time of year it is covered with swarms of gulls and other aquatic fowl who go 
there to breed. When we landed on the island, they rose in great clouds, and made a noise 
like that of a high wind in a forest. We could hardly step without breaking the eggs which 
almost covered the ground. The natives went to work and filled the boat with eggs as full as 
it would hold. I am not fond of gull eggs, but can eat them at a pinch. They are dark colored 
& have a rank flavor. 

There were hundreds of walrus on the rocks when we arrived there, but after shooting a 
few of them the rest took to the water and did not come back till afternoon, when I shot 
one and took the tusks. The tusks are two feet long. The walrus is an immense animal, 
almost as large as an elephant. At noon the natives made a fire of walrus blubber, and made 
tea. They also cooked eggs and seal meat. We left Walrus Island early in the afternoon, 
and reached home at seven o’clock. The natives were obliged to row all the way back 
against wind and tide current, and were almost exhausted when we got back. My most 
congenial companion here, Dr. Gildersleve, went to San Francisco on the “Alexandra” 


333 













Pribilof Islands: The People 


which is an irreparable loss to me. The people left are but little company to me. I expect 
a German doctor here by the first vessel. His name is Cramer. I have seen him but have 
not much acquaintance with him. There is a good deal of sickness among the natives.... 
Dr. Gildersleve attributes this to their underground dwellings which are always damp and 
mouldy. They live in these underground abodes, not as I used to suppose on account of 
extreme cold, but because they can not get wood on any of the Aleutian Islands to build 
houses. These islands, St. Paul and St. George, were not inhabited when the Russians first 
discovered them. The Russians brought natives from various islands to live on them. There 
is one family here from Kamschatka. They are very much darker than the Aleutians, but I 
think are finer looking. They have been here thirty years and speak the Aleutian language. 


St. Paul Island Alaska 
Sept. 10, 1870 

My dear Hattie: 

Time passes rapidly away even in Behrings sea and by the time this reaches you it will be 
nearly five years since I left home. You have changed much more than I have no doubt. You 
must be a young lady grown now. It seems a little strange to me to think of you so. I would 
not have you here to remain for anything but I often wish that my sisters could be here for 
a few hours to accompany me in one of my walks. It would astonish you to see the seals I 
think. The young seals which were born in June and July are learning to swim now. It is a 
singular fact that a young seal can not swim, and would drown as soon as an infant if left 
alone in the water. They are now (the youngest of them) about six weeks old, and as tall as 
a large cat, but three times as heavy. The old males are as large as a horse and have a mane 
like that of an old buffalo. They are a formidable looking animal, and if any one who had 
never seen or heard of them before should suddenly come upon them it would frighten him 
as much as a pack of lions. They are not dangerous though for they never fight when they 
have a chance to run, and they move so slowly on shore that a small child can easily keep 
out of their way. I take some long walks all alone when the weather is fine. Little blue foxes 
come out of their holes and bark at me as I go by. They live on seal meat. 

Berries are ripe on the island now and I see native women and girls out picking them every 
day. There are two kinds of berries. I do not like either of them much except preserved. 

One kind is a good deal like a red raspberry only the seeds are much larger and coarser. 

The other kind is like huckleberries. The women complain that the foxes eat more than 
their share of the berries. Some of the natives are quite industrious and anxious to improve 
their condition and be “alle same Americansky,” but there is not much chance of that as 
long as they are obliged to live in underground houses and burn seal blubber for fuel. It 
makes a very rank black smoke which ruins everything in the house. There are not trees on 
the island so they will have to continue as they are for a time yet. I think hardy trees would 
grow here, and have written to the bureau of Agriculture in Washington to send either 
young sprouts or seeds of maple, cottonwood. I think if there is any one here to take an 
interest in the matter after I leave they can have large groves twenty years hence. 

The natives here will have to live on seal meat if a vessel does not come soon. The sugar and 
tobacco is all gone already, which to them is a greater misfortune than if the flour was all 
gone. They have to make their beer of berries alone now. It is quite intoxicating, but they 
like it better when they have sugar to put in it. 

**** 


Oct. 9, 1870 

A steamer from San Francisco arrived this morning and I am ordered to San Francisco. 
Will probably arrive there about eight days before you get this letter. Direct to San 
Francisco. 


Your loving brother 
Eli 143 


334 




Biographies H ♦ Huggins - Hutchinson 


Hughes, Edward “Ned” 

Cook, North American Commercial Company, St. Paul Island 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

The following entry was included in the St. Paul Island Agent’s Log on Friday, April 6, 
1900, respecting the death of Ned Hughes: 

Death resulted from a gradual collapse since January 19, 1899, when he was partially 
asphyxiated by coal-gas while sleeping in the house of E. J. Morton, the teamster, the 
company house being in process of renovation at the time. Age uncertain, between 55-60; 
buried inside the enclosure in which are the remains of Dr. Otto Voss. 144 


Hungerford, Howard Hart (1882-1968) 

Agent, U.S. Department of Commerce, St. Paul Island, 1924-1925 
Genealogy 

Howard Hart Hungerford was born July 1, 1882, in California, the son of Frank Mason 
Hungerford and Martha Miranda (Spain) Hungerford. Howard married Edith Annette 
during November of 1918 at Petersburg, Alaska. Howard Hungerford died in Seattle on 
October 8, 1968. 

Biographical Sketch 

Howard Hungerford worked as a fish curer in Petersburg, Alaska. The 1920 U.S. Census 
noted he was manager of a fish plant in Seattle. After his work on St. Paul Island, he con¬ 
tinued working as a warden for the Bureau of Fisheries. 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Howard Hungerford served as the Agent on St. Paul Island from 1924 to 1925. 


Hutchinson, Hayward Malcolm (1832-1883) 

Baltimore Merchant and Founder of Hutchinson, Kohl & Company 
Secretary, Treasurer, and Stockholder, Alaska Commercial Company 

Genealogy 

Hayward Malcolm Hutchinson was born January 19, 1832, in Milford, New Hampshire. 
He was the son of David Hutchinson and Elizabeth (Hayward) Hutchinson, whose origi¬ 
nal surname was his given name. Hayward married Elizabeth Catherine Abbott, daughter 
of Edwin Abbott and Catherine (Johnson) Abbott, on September 7, 1859, at Baltimore, 
Maryland, as reported in the Baltimore Sun of September 9,1859. Hayward and Catherine 
Hutchinson had two daughters: Linda (married to Charles Ball, and later to John S. Webb) 


335 









Pribilof Islands: The People 


and Katie (married to John F. Olmstead), both born in Baltimore. 145 Hayward Hutchinson 
died at age fifty-one on May 10, 1883, in Washington, D.C., after he had “amassed a for- 

Biographical Sketch 

Hayward Hutchinson was educated in Milford’s 
one-room Schoolhouse #3 on Union Street, a 
school established by his grandfather Nehemiah 
Hayward. He completed his formal education at 
Mt. Vernon, New Hampshire, a few miles from 
Milford. 147 

Hutchinson lived in Washington, D.C., for a 
short time. In 1880, he and his family settled on 
293 acres purchased in 1875 by his wife, Elizabeth, 
in the Berry’s District of Montgomery County, 
Maryland. The family established a home there 
that they named “Sitka Farm.” “He built a large 
estate on land that now comprises the Hillandale 
development in eastern Montgomery County to 
the east of New Hampshire Avenue, just north of 
the Beltway (I-495).” 148 Today, only the overseer’s 
house remains. According to the March 1976 
issue of The Hillandaler, a Montgomery County 
historical newsletter, Hutchinson also built the 
Sitka Baptist Church for his hired black men and 
women laborers. 149 

The Hutchinson and Hayward families were active in many spheres. Their ac¬ 
complishments included the world-famous Hutchinson Family Singers, the Bartlett & 
Hayward Company of Baltimore, and the Hutchinson & Kohl Company of California, 
which evolved to become the Alaska Commercial Company. 

John W. Hutchinson, as head of the Family Singers, was looking for an advertising 
agent when he approached his nephew, Hayward, on the subject: 

March 14, 1853, this tour ended. We went home and at once began negotiations with 
Hayward Hutchinson, son of my oldest brother David, to go out on the road as our advance 
agent. He did not go, but soon after went to Baltimore and commenced a business career 
that made him both famous and wealthy. 150 

In 1853, when Hayward was twenty-one, he and brothers Jesse and Elias left New 
Hampshire to join their uncles, George and Jonas Hayward, in the Bartlett & Hayward 
Company, an innovative business producing stoves that they had started in 1844 in 
Baltimore. The business grew to become one of Baltimore’s largest iron manufacturers, 
shifting its focus to ornamental iron work, steam heating and “the construction of com¬ 
plete plants for making illuminating gas. This firm furnished the heating apparatus for the 


tune in the fur seal business.” 146 



HAYWARD M. HUTCHINSON 

Hayward M. Hutchinson. (Samuel P 
Johnston, 1940, Alaska Commercial 
Company 1868-1940.) 


336 





Biographies H ♦ Hutchinson 


Johns Hopkins Hospital, the City Hall of Baltimore; also those in the Treasury, State, War, 
and Navy building; Post Office and new Library at Washington.... They employ from 800 
to 1,200 men ... built a variety of tools for the manufacture of guns.” 151 One may conclude 
that it was as an outgrowth of these enterprises that Hayward M. Hutchinson entered into 
the manufacture and selling of cooking utensils to the Union Army during the Civil War. 
As a consequence, Hayward became acquainted with General Lovell Harrison Rousseau, 
the military commander heading Customs and Trade during the Civil War. After the war, 
in 1867, General Rousseau suggested to Hayward that he accompany the general to Sitka 
in Russian America (via San Francisco) where, as the presidentially appointed United 
States Commissioner, Rousseau would accept the territorial transfer from the Russian 
Governor Prince Maksutov. 152 As noted in Hayward Hutchinson’s 1883 obituary: 

Mr. Hutchinson being the oldest of the firm, his business and inclination led him to do 
much traveling, and about the close of the war, at which time he was in rather poor health, 
he made a trip to Alaska. Here he became acquainted with the Russian governor of that 
province, and seeing an opportunity, formed a company and obtained for it the fur seal 
business, by which he amassed a fortune. 153 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Hayward M. Hutchinson saw more than one “opportunity” on his western journey. He 
made good contacts in San Francisco while traveling with General Rousseau. At New 
Archangel (Sitka) he developed more contacts. Hutchinson’s business acumen enabled 
him to outmaneuver potential rivals, such as Oppenheim & Co. of London, England. 154 
His successful acquisition of the Russian-American Company’s (RAC) major assets en¬ 
abled him to establish a significant competitive foothold in the territory. With the RAC 
assets in hand, he formed Hutchinson, Kohl 8c Company, which he parlayed into the 
Alaska Commercial Company (ACC). Then in 1871, he entered into a lease with Russia, 
thereby obtaining sole rights to the Russian northern fur-seal herd at the Commander 
Islands. 155 Hutchinson’s bold business moves succeeded in securing ACC monopolies 
over the northern fur-seal trade in the United States and Russia. 

The ACC’s successful bid for the 
lease to the Pribilof Islands fur-seal har¬ 
vest rankled many businessmen with 
like intentions. Some of these men, such 
as Louis Goldstone, who represented 
numerous other interests, 156 went all-out 
to discredit the ACC in futile attempts 
to obtain their own direct access to the 
fur-seal wealth. They formed the Anti- 
Monopoly Association and contributed 
to the creation of the Alaska Herald 
newspaper in San Francisco (1868-72) 
to print occasional, spurious articles 
about the ACC (see Honcharenko biog¬ 
raphy). These efforts succeeded in spur- 



Sitka Farm, residence of Hayward M. Hutchinson, 
Montgomery County, MD. (J. Thomas Scharf, 
History of Western Maryland,/?. 644. Courtesy 
Montgomery County Historical Society.) 


337 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


ring Congress, in 1876, to open an inquiry into the performance of the ACC under its 
lease from the U.S. government. 157 

Hutchinson first testified before a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives 
Ways and Means Committee in Washington, D.C., on April 24, 1876, and then again on 
May 3. Subcommittee members queried Hutchinson on his involvement in the Alaska 
sealing industry and the circumstances leading to the government’s twenty-year lease of 
the Seal Islands to the ACC. 


In his April 24, 1876, testimony, Hutchinson responded to numerous questions from 
Congressman Hill. His responses are abridged here: 


I reside in Washington. I have resided here since December, 1868 ... I was living here 
during the time of the lease of the Alaska Islands to the Alaska Commercial Company. I 
am a stockholder in the company, and was originally an officer, first elected secretary then 
treasurer. The Alaska Commercial Company owned nothing except the lease when the 
lease was obtained, but afterward all the business of my company, Hutchinson, Kohl & 

Co., was sold or transferred to the Alaska Commercial Company. Mr. Miller was the first 
president of the company and is its president now, but many changes have occurred with 
the directors. The company employs agents for the discharge of its business in Alaska. The 
attorney for the company at present is Mr. Jefferies. When I came here to Washington, 
in 1868,1 had a very vague idea of the way to proceed to get some legislation for Alaska, 
and I looked around and employed a gentleman who consented to be an attorney for the 
company. That was Mr. J.A. Creswell. I went to Elkton [Maryland] to see him on the subject 
in December, 1868.1 explained my business and proposition, and asked his advice as to the 
drafting of the bill. I asked him to come to Washington and be the attorney of the company. 
He kept that position until his appointment as Postmaster General. The company had been 
organized under the State laws of California in the fall of 1868. 158 



WILLIAM KOHL 


William Kohl. (Samuel P. Johnston, 1940, 
Alaska Commercial Company 1868-1940) 


Hutchinson continued his testimony in re¬ 
sponse to questions posed by Congressman 
Fernando Wood, Chairman of the Subcommittee 
of the Ways and Means Committee. Hutchinson 
identified the men involved with securing the 
lease and those employed as officers of the ACC. 
He stated emphatically that no wrongdoing or 
undue influence entered into the acquisition of 
the lease. Again, his testimony is abridged here. 

I did myself, and in my own name, purchase the 
property of the old Russian-American Company. 

I went to Alaska in 1867. I started north from 
Victoria, with a small vessel, in December, 1867, 
and went to Sitka with the full intention of buying 
the interest of the Russian-American Company, 
their buildings, boats, and paraphernalia which 
were not transferred to the United States. I bought 
all their goods and chattels at Sitka at a fixed price 
per yard, per pound, per dozen, etc., according to 
the catalogue which they had of the goods on hand. 

I bought everything they had. I bought everything 
in my own name except one vessel [schooner 
H.M. Hutchinson l, which I bought in the name of 
Hutchinson & Hirsch. It was then the conception 


338 








Biographies H ♦ Hutchinson 


of having the lease given to me arose. I do not think I thought of it until I went north [in 
1868] and saw the condition of things on the islands; this great seal-life, and its importance 
to the people of this country and of Alaska. I never dreamed of such a thing as having any 
privilege or that there was any necessity for it. But after living there one season, and seeing 
the danger of the destruction of the seal-fisheries, I then wanted the privilege perpetuated, 
so as to get my money out of the business. 159 

According to Gustave Niebaum, Hayward Hutchinson first visited the Pribilofs 
aboard the newly acquired schooner H.M. Hutchinson. It “landed at St. Paul Island's 
Northeast Point in 1868 following the transfer of property to the United States. Hayward 
Hutchinson and the crew landed in great style and carried an American flag to the high¬ 
est hill claiming the island as an American island.” That high hill at Northeast Point bears 
the name Hutchinson Hill. 160 

After his arch-competitor, Louis Goldstone, testified, Hutchinson went before 
the committee again, on May 3, 1876, and responded (A) to questions (Q) posed by 
Congressman Hill: 

Hill (Q): Hutchinson, Kohl & Co., as 1 understand, took from Saint Paul and Saint George’s 
Islands some eighty-odd thousand seal-skins previous to this lease in 1869. They paid the 
Government a royalty of $1.00 per skin, did they not? 

Hutchinson (A): Yes, Sir. 

Hill (Q): Who owned those 80,000 skins? 

Hutchinson (A): I would like to state that we did not take these skins from the island 
until after the law was passed. We killed the seals in 1869, but the skins were not taken 
away until 1870, after the lease had been awarded to us. I believe Mr. Boutwell [Treasury 
Secretary] recommended to some members of the committee that those skins then on the 
island, which had already been taken in 1869, be taxed $1.00, and that was put into the law; 
we were taxed a dollar apiece for them. Those skins belonged to Hutchinson, Kohl & Co., 
and Williams, Haven & Co. of New London, Conn. 

Hill (Q): Who are Williams, Haven & Co.? 

Hutchinson (A): Williams, Haven & Co are Mr. Henry P. Haven, of Connecticut, who died 
last Sunday, and Richard Chapel. They are whalers. They took seals and whales, and had 
been at that business in the Pacific for a great many years. They had a vessel in the water of 
the Okhotsk Sea, I think, seal-fishing in 1866. While their vessel was at Honolulu in 1866, 
the captain became acquainted with a Russian captain who put in there in distress with 
the remainder, or a portion, of the Alaska seal-skins taken by the old Russian company 
and there this captain learned of this interest. He left his vessel at Honolulu, went to 
Connecticut, and conferred with his employers. Then Mr. Chapel, one of the concerns, 
went out to Honolulu and fitted out this vessel and another one and sent them to the 
Alaska Islands as early as April, 1868. 

When we arrived on the island we found three men had been landed there by a small 
vessel, and the other large vessel was lying off the island ready to land whenever the wind 
and the ice would allow. They sealed on their own account during 1868.1 was there on 
the island at the time. When I went there I found a great deal of wrangling and quarreling 
between the two interests of Hutchinson, Kohl & Co., and Captain Morgan, of the 
Connecticut people. One of our vessels, a steamer, had landed before me with Mr. Bosquet, 
who also was interested, with instructions to go to sealing; but he and Captain Morgan 
had a great deal of trouble and annoyance. I tried to arrange to seal together, but Captain 
Morgan was not at all inclined to make any arrangement. We had working for us all of the 
inhabitants of Saint Paul Island, numbering about 90 men. Captain Morgan had the people 
that he brought with him from Honolulu to seal. Williams, Haven & Co. did their business 


339 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


on the Pacific coast, and the management of it was by a younger Mr. Williams in Honolulu. 
The quarreling became almost serious. They commenced sealing much earlier that season 
than the Russians had sealed before. When I came there, about the 9th May, 1868,1 found 
this wrangling going on, and my people very much inclined to drive away the others; that 
is, to have a quarrel with them. They had about 24 men to our 90.1 went to see Mr. Morgan 
at his quarters. We talked it over a long time and tried to have some arrangement that we 
might seal according to the old rules of the Russian company, of which I had learned a great 
deal in my journey to San Francisco with the Russian commissioner. My four month stay 
in Sitka also gave me information as to the manner of doing business. When I came to the 
island 1 found that the natives were very tenacious about the manner of killing, and did not 
want the seals killed excepting by the old rules of the company, which had preserved these 
animals for so many years. Morgan’s men killed old seals, cows, or anything they came 
across. The idea was to get all they could. We failed to make any arrangement, but agreed 
to work at separate points. There are six or seven different rookeries from which seals are 
driven to be killed. We divided the rookeries. The Morgan party drove from two or three, 
while we drove from the others, so that there was no conflict in regard to the territory to 
drive from. The business closed up in 1868 with their taking what they could with their 
twenty-four people, and we taking what we could with our ninety people. I then came to 
Washington, seeing that this business would be destroyed unless there was something 
done, and came with a very indefinite idea what to ask, and in fact not prepared to ask for 
anything except some legislation looking to the preservation of these animals. My visit here 
finally resulted in legislation. 

Early in 1869, while I was here in that regard, these people came down from Connecticut 
and made an offer of a dollar a skin to the Committee on Commerce. Williams, Haven & 

Co. were two-fifths owners, and Hutchinson, Kohl & Co. three-fifths owners of the 87,000 
skins taken in 1869. 161 

Hill (Q): What interest had Ennis, Parrott & Wasserman in that case? 

Hutchinson (A): None. 

Hill (Q): And you say that Taylor & Bendell had no interest?” 

Hutchinson (A): None. 

Hill (Q): They brought suit however for an interest? 

Hutchinson (A): Yes, sir; they brought suit in 1871 for the cash for that portion of the skins 
taken from Saint George Island, to wit, 24,000. That was under an old arrangement with 
Burgam & Co. In that 1868 matter that I spoke of, Taylor & Bendell landed a schooner at 
Saint George Island, and another party (with whom, I think, Mr. Parrott and a gentleman 
named House, from Boston, had an interest) landed another schooner, so that when our 
people returned the second time to Saint George Island, they found these two schooners 
there with their people ashore putting up a small building, adobe mostly, and preparing 
to seal. Our people went into an arrangement to work Saint George Island together, they 
having a portion and our people having a portion. [See Osborne Howes biography for 
additional insight into Parrott & Co. involvement.] In March 1869 I think, Congress passed 
a resolution making those islands a Government reservation, and allowing the Secretary of 
the Treasury to designate who might remain on the island, or go there. We got permission, 

I think from Secretary McCulloch, to go on this island and kill as ma/iy seals were 
necessary for the support of the people. Then we killed those 69,000; 24,000 from Saint 
George and the remainder from Saint Paul. 162 After, Taylor & Bendell claimed an interest in 
these 24,000, and brought suit against us for their interest in them. We notified them before 
we went north in 1869, that that arrangement ceased between the two concerns. 163 

The Ways and Means Committee resolved: 

That in the opinion of this House there is no just ground of complaint against the Alaska 
Commercial Company or the officers of the Government who were intrusted under the law 


340 



Biographies H ♦ Hutchinson - Notes 


with the power to make, and see to the performance of, the lease, aforesaid, and that it is 
entitled to the enjoyment of the franchise. 164 

Hayward Hutchinson became a wealthy man through his association with the Alaska 
Commercial Company, with which he remained affiliated until his death in 1883. 


1 U.S. Census, 1900—1920; Indiana Marriage Collection, 1800—1941, book 23, 302, Ancestry.com; 
and U.S. Congress, House, Appendix A to Hearings Before the Committee on Expenditures in the 
Department of Commerce and Labor, House Resolution No. 73, To Investigate The Fur-Seal Industry 
of Alaska, 62nd Cong., 1st sess., 1911 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1911), 1120-21. 

2 Ibid. 

3 Barton Warren Evermann, Alaska Fisheries and Fur Industries in 1911, U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, 
Doc. no. 766 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1912), 90. 

4 Ibid. 

5 Certificate of Marriage, copy obtained from the State of Alaska, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Juneau, 
AI<, Dec. 28, 2006. 

6 Craig Buescher, Mary Buescher, Jock Hubbell, Jean Hubbell, George Peter, and Dorothy Skalka, 
Deweese Centennial 1886-1986 (Lawrence, NE: Ostdick), 23A; David B. Winandy (NOAA/NOS/ 
ORR), Richard J. and Dixie Hajny Interviews, Jan. 20, 2001, Fur-Seal Archives, NMML Library, 
Seattle, WA; and Morris Communications, "Alaska: Leaving a Legacy,” http://www.findarticles.com 
(accessed July 2004). 

7 Roy H. Hurd, "Pribilof Management Report for August 1967,” Fur-Seal Archives 8.03.01, NMML 
Library, Seattle, WA. 

8 David Winandy, Richard J. and Dixie Hajny Interviews, 12; Morris Communications, "Alaska: 
Leaving a Legacy,” http://www.findarticles.com (accessed July 2004). 

9 Phyllis Swetzof, daughter of Richard and Dixie Hajny (Nov. 2008). 

10 State of California, Certification of Vital Record, County of Alameda, Oakland, CA. 

11 U.S. Censuses, 1880 and 1900; Cora Haley death certificate; California Academy of Sciences, 
“George Haley, 1870-1954,” Academy News Letter 173 (May 1954), 2; and Ancestry.com. 

12 California Academy of Sciences, “George Haley,” 2-3. 

13 Ibid., 2. 

14 Ward T. Bower and Henry D. Aller, Alaska Fisheries and Fur Industries in 1915, U.S. Bureau of 
Fisheries, Doc. no. 834 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1917), 78-9. 

15 Ward T. Bower and Henry D. Aller, Alaska Fisheries and Fur Industries in 1916, U.S. Bureau of 
Fisheries, Doc. no. 838 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1917b), 84-5. 

16 Ward T. Bower, Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries in 1920, U.S. Bur. Fish Doc. no. 909 
(Washington, DC: GPO, 1921), 77. 

17 Hal Johnson, “So We’re Told - Alaska Bound,” Berkeley Gazette (Berkeley, CA), July 11, 1941; and 
Hal Johnson, “So We’re Told - Flora and Fauna Man,” Berkeley Gazette, Apr. 1954. 

18 California Academy of Sciences, “George Haley,” 3. 

19 Karl W. Kenyon to Dr. Robert C. Miller, Director, California Academy of Sciences, dated Mar. 14, 
1956, Fur-Seal Archives, NMML Library, Seattle, WA. 

20 G Dallas Hanna, “Random Comparisons of St. Paul Island as observed by Dr. G. [sic] Dallas Hanna 
in 1960 after an absence of 40 years” (Belvedere Scientific Fund, 1960), 2. 

21 G without a following period is Hanna’s first name. Robert C. Miller, “G Dallas Hanna,” Proceedings 
of the California Academy of Sciences, 32, no. 6 (1962): 5; U.S. Censuses, 1920 and 1930; Linda York 
Crockett, Ancestry.com (1131761); and MA Vital Records, vol. 559, 46. In various articles of corre¬ 
spondence, Hanna himself occasionally placed a period after his single-letter given name. 

22 State of California, Dept, of Health Services, California Death Index, 1940-1997, Sacramento, CA. 

23 Miller, “G Dallas Hanna” 6 and 9. 

24 Miller, "Obituary of G Dallas Hanna,” California Academy of Sciences Collection, San Francisco. 

25 Barton Warren Evermann, Alaska Fisheries and Fur Industries in 1913, U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, 
Doc. no. 797, app. 2 to the Report of the U.S. Commissioner of Fisheries for 1913 (Washington, DC: 


341 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


GPO, 1914), 12; and St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, July 29, 1913. 

26 Selected Hanna photographs can be found in G Dallas Hanna, The Alaska Fur-Seal Islands, ed. John 
A. Lindsay, NOAA Tech. Memo. NOS ORR 16 (2008), and the elements of his collection can be 
viewed in John A. Lindsay, Gina Rappaport, and Betty A. Lindsay, Pribilof Islands, Alaska: A Guide 
to Photographs and Illustrations, NOAA Tech. Memo. NOS ORR 20 (2009). 

27 Miller, “G Dallas Hanna,” 15-40. 

28 Ward T. Bower and Henry D. Aller, Alaska Fisheries and Fur Industries in 1914, U.S. Bureau of 
Fisheries, Doc. no. 819 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1915), 69. 

29 Miller, “G Dallas Hanna,” 6 and 9. 

30 The nickname "Lucy” is given in parentheses in the June 30, 1916, St. Paul Island agent’s census. 

31 Betty A. Lindsay and John A. Lindsay, Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Genealogy and Census, NOAA Tech. 
Memo. NOS ORR 18 (2009), 273 and 380. 

32 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, May 17, 1896, 442. 

33 Anna Hanson was born four years after the death of John Hanson; the St. Paul Island agent’s census 
does not list the biological father. 

34 The Salem Indian School and the Chemawa Indian School are the same institution. The school 
carried at least two naming conventions over the course of its history. Today, Chemawa lies within 
the community of Salem, Oregon. During its early inception, it was situated in an unincorporated 
community, Chemawa, north of Salem. 

35 The deposition states the name “Hansson” instead of “Hanson.” 

36 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, convened at Paris 
under the Treaty between the United States of America and Great Britain, concluded at Washington 
February 29, 1892, for the determination of questions between the two governments concerning the 
jurisdictional rights of the United States in the waters of Bering Sea, vol. 3, (Washington, DC: GPO, 
1895), 116. 

37 “Lucy” is given as a nickname in parentheses in the June 30, 1916, St. Paul Island agent’s census. 

38 Victor Scheffer, "A Mammoth Tooth from Alaska,” Nature Magazine 451 (1952): 6. Illustration is a 
Scheffer photo from Fur-Seal Archives, NMML Library, Seattle, WA, neg. no. 2777. 

39 “J. P. Harrington Biography,” http://nas.ucdavis.edu; and U.S. Dept, of State, Passport Applications, 
Jan. 2, 1906-Mar. 31, 1925, NARA microfilm publication M1490, passport no. 58907 issued Feb. 16, 
1905. 

40 Victor Golla, “John P. Harrington and His Legacy,” Anthropological Linguistics 33, no. 4 (1991): 337. 

41 Carabeth Laird, Encounter with an Angry God (Banning, CA: Mallei Museum Press, 1975), xix. 

42 Golla, “John P. Harrington and His Legacy,” 338. 

43 Knut Bergsland, Aleut Dictionary (Fairbanks: Univ. of Alaska, Alaska Native Language Center, 1994), 
viii. 

44 James R. Glenn, “The Sound Recordings of John P. Harrington,” Anthropological Linguistics 33, no. 4 
(1991): 363. 

45 These recordings are archived at the Smithsonian Museum Support Center, Suitland, MD, under the 
“Papers of John Peabody Harrington,” NAA SR ALE 0003. 

46 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 26. 

47 James “Jack” O’Dell, “Captain ‘Hell Roaring’ Michael A. Healy, U.S.R.C.S.,” http://www.uscg.mil/his- 
tory/people/Healy_ODell_Article.asp (accessed Apr. 10, 2003). 

48 Gerald O. Williams, “Michael J. [A] Healy and the Alaska Maritime Frontier, 1880-1902.” MA thesis, 
Univ. Oregon, 1987 (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Dissertation Service, 2005), 33. Note: Williams incorrectly 
referred to Capt. Healy as Michael James Healy rather than as Michael Augustus Healy. 

49 Noel Alger Day, “Fred Randolph Moore Family,” Ancestry World Tree at Ancestry.com, Day noted 
that Michael was a descendant of William Craft and Ellen Smith (1826-1891), sister of Mary, 
Michael Healy’s mother. Ellen Smith and William Craft were acclaimed Georgia slaves who escaped 
north via the underground railroad, she disguised as a gentleman-traveler (she was light-skinned) 
and he (dark-skinned) as her servant. Compare William Leo Lucey, The Catholic Church in Maine 
(Francestown, NH: Marshall Jones, 1957), 213. For additional information on Ellen and William 
Craft go to http://www.africanaonline.com/slavery. 

50 Williams, “Michael J. [A] Healy,” 34-5. 

51 Truman R. Strobridge and Dennis L. Noble, Alaska and the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, 1867-1915 
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999), 45. 


342 




Biographies H ♦ Notes 


52 Williams, “MichaelJ. [A] Healy,” 490. 

53 Ibid., 37. 

54 Lucey, The Catholic Church In Maine, 211. 

55 Williams, “Michael J. [A] Healy,” 37-8 and 40. 

56 Ibid., 40-3. 

57 Strobridge and Noble, Alaska and the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, chapters 3 and 11; and O’Dell, 
“Captain ‘Hell Roaring’ Michael A. Healy,” U.S. Coast Guard Historical Museum. According to this 
reference, Healy acquired his nickname ‘“Hell Roaring Mike’ as a result of adventures in the saloons 
of San Francisco, and his superiors acknowledged the problem by allowing him to take his wife along 
on his voyages.” http://www.uscg.mil (accessed June 3, 2009). 

58 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 27. 

59 “CGC Healy History,” http://www.uscg.mil/pacarea/cgcHealy/history.asp (accessed June 3, 2009); 
“Revenue Captain Michael A. Healy, USRCS: Biographical Highlights,” http://www.uscg.mil/history/ 
people/Healy_Bio.asp (accessed June 3, 2009); and “Captain Michael A. Healy, USRCS,” http://www. 
uscg.mil/history/people/HealyMichaellndex.asp (accessed June 3, 2009). 

60 In 1999, Waterfront Sounds Productions released an interesting, although not completely accurate, 
account of Michael Healy’s life, including the impact of American hunters on the marine mammal 
resources of Alaska and the further impact on the Native communities. The fifty-seven-minute 
documentary is titled The Odyssey of Captain Healy. Executive Producer Danny McGuire; Producer, 
Writer, and Director Maria Brooks. (DVD; San Jose, CA: Waterfront Sounds, 1999). 

61 John Francis Murphy, “Cutter Captain: The Life and Times of John C. Cantwell,” PhD diss., Univ. of 
Connecticut, 1968: 50-52. 

62 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 31. 

63 U.S. Census, 1900, San Francisco, CA. 

64 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 32. 

65 Ibid. 

66 Ibid., 32-6. 

67 Ibid., 35-6. 

68 Volodymyr Kubijovye, ed., “The Rev. Agapius Honcharenko, 1832-1916,” in Enycylopedia of 
Ukraine, vol. 2 (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto, 1988), reprinted in The Ukranian Weekly 67, no. 25 
(June 20, 1999), http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/1999/259904.shtml (accessed Jan. 27, 2006); 
and “An Opening of State Park ‘Ukraina’ in Hayward, California,” http://www.brama.com/news/ 
press/990424honcharenko.html (accessed Jan. 27, 2006). 

69 U.S. Federal Censuses, 1870-1920, Ancestry.com. 

70 An Opening of State Park ‘Ukraina’ in Hayward, California, http://www.brama.com/news/ 
press/990424honcharenko.html (accessed Jan. 27, 2006). 

71 Kubijovye, ed., “The Rev. Agapius Honcharenko, 1832-1916,” in Enycylopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2; 
and “An Opening of State Park ‘Ukraina’ in Hayward, California,” http://www.brama.com/news/ 
press/990424honcharenko.html (accessed Jan. 27, 2006). 

72 U.S. Federal Censuses, 1870-1920, Ancestry.com; “State Park Ukraina in Hayward, California,” 
Brama Ukrainewstand, http://brama.com (May 1999); and Kubijovye, ed., “The Rev. Agapius 
Honcharenko, 1832-1916,” in Enycylopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2. 

73 “A History of the Wrongs of Alaska. An Appeal to the People and Press of America,” was originally 
printed by the Anti-Monopoly Association of the Pacific Coast, Feb. 1875. The article was reprinted 
in U.S. Cong., House, 44th Cong., 1st sess., Ex. Doc. no. 83 (Jan. 20, 1876): 152-171. 

74 On Feb. 25, 1876, the House Committee on Ways and Means initiated investigatory proceedings 
into the operations of the Alaska Commercial Company under its lease from the United States to 
harvest fur seals. See U.S. Cong., House, Committee of Ways and Means, The Alaska Commercial 
Company, 44th Cong., 1st sess., H. Rep. no. 623, June 3, 18/6, 143 pp. 

75 Richard A. Pierce, Russian America: A Biographical Dictionary (Kingston, ON: Limestone Press, 
1990), 172 and 194 (on page 172 the date of the Congressional investigation is 1876 rather than 1875 
as stated on page 194); and “An Opening of State Park Ukraina. 

76 Pierc e, Russian America, 193-4. 

77 Wolfgang Saxon, “Obituary David Hopkins,” New York Times, Nov. 14, 2001, A25. 

78 Dennis McLellan, “Obituary, David Hopkins, 79,” Los Angeles Times, Nov. 25, 2001, B14. 

79 Allan Cox, David M. Hopkins, and G. Brent Dalrymple, “Geomagnetic Polarity Epochs: Pribilof 


343 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


Islands, Alaska,” Geological Society of America Bulletin 77, no. 9 (1966): 883-909. 

80 David M. Hopkins, "Reports, Pleistocene Glaciation,” Science (Apr. 1966): 343. 

81 “Biographies of Notable Americans, 1904,” http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll (accessed Apr. 
20, 2004). 

82 Biography Resources Center, http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC (accessed Dec. 14, 2003). 

83 David L. Ebby, "Biography of William T. Hornaday,” William T. Hornaday Awards History Center, a 
U.S. Scouting Services Project website, http://usscouts.org/history/hornaday.html (accessed Dec. 14, 
2003). 

84 Ibid. 

85 William T. Hornaday, Thirty Years War for Wildlife: Gains and Losses in the Thankless Task, 
Congressional Edition (Stamford, CT: Gillespie Bros., 1931). 

86 Ibid., 173. 

87 Ibid. 

88 Ibid. 

89 Ibid. 

90 Ibid., 174. 

91 Ibid. (The authors assume Dr. Hornaday was speaking only of the Pribilof Islands seal popula¬ 
tion); and Victor B. Scheffer, Clifford H. Fiscus, and Ethel I. Todd, History of Scientific Study and 
Management of the Alaskan Fur Seal, Callorhinus ursinus, 1786-1964, NOAA Tech. Rep. NMFS 
SSRF-780, 1984, 20, which stated, “In 1911, when the seal population was at its lowest level in his¬ 
tory. An estimate of the total herd, 123,600, was probably low, for an estimate made the following 
year upon more reliable data was 75% higher.” 

92 Hornaday, Thirty Years War, 174. 

93 Ibid., 175. 

94 Ibid. 

95 Ibid., 177; Hornaday’s text is not clear as to the sequence of events, but the authors interpret it to 
mean that these resolutions were handed to Sen. Dixon upon Hornaday’s first meeting with the 
senator. 

96 Ibid., 175. 

97 Ibid., 178. 

98 Ibid. 

99 Ibid., 175 

100 Ibid. These authors with the assistance from Collections Librarian Kenneth R. Despertt, D.C. 

Public Library, Washingtoniana Division (email to Betty Lindsay Jan. 30, 2009) located an article, 
“Club Begins Fight, Movement for Saving the Fur Seal Industry,” printed on Dec. 10, 1910 in The 
Washington Star, 20. These authors did not learn whether other newspapers carried an article under 
the title “The Loss of the Fur Seal Industry,” as stated by Hornaday, Tliirty Years War, 175. 

101 Ibid. 

102 Ibid., 176. 

103 Ibid., 175. 

104 Ibid., 176. 

105 Ibid. 

106 Ibid., 180. 

107 Ibid., 178. 

108 Ibid., 180. 

109 Scheffer et al., History of Scientific Study, 19, citing W. I. Lembkey, Annual report seal fisheries of 
Alaska [for 1907], U.S. Congress, Senate, 1908. Presumably Scheffer is referring to Lembkey’s Report 
"Letter from the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, Transmitting, Pursuant to Senate Resolution, 
of March 2, 1908, Certain Reports Relating to the Alaskan Seal Fisheries,” U.S. Congress, Senate, 

60th Cong., 1st sess., Doc. no. 376, in U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, Alaskan Seal Fisheries: Compilation 
of Documents and Other Printed Matter Relating Thereto, vol. 15 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1913), 
12-65. 

110 Hornaday, Thirty Years War, 176. 

111 Ibid. 

112 Scheffer et al., History of Scientific Study, 19. 

113 Hornaday, Thirty Years War, 178. 


344 




Biographies H ♦ Notes 


114 Ibid. 

115 Ibid., 180. 

116 Ibid. 

117 Ibid. 

118 Ibid. Hornaday apparently erroneously stated that news of the killing of 12,920 fur seals came in 
July 1920; these authors assume the date was actually July 1910, which is consistent with Hornaday’s 
story line. 

119 Briton Cooper Busch, Tl-ie War Against the Seals: A History of the North American Seal Company 
(Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Univ. Press, 1985), 156, citing President, NY Zoological Society, to 
Charles Nagel, Secretary of Commerce and Industries, June 1, 1910. NARA, RG 22, sec. 21, file 100, 
folder 2. 

120 Hornaday, Thirty Years War, 180. 

121 Ibid. 

122 Scheffer et al., History of Scientific Study, 19. 

123 Lisa Marie Morris, Keeper of the Seal: The Art of Henry Wood Elliott and the Salvation of the Alaska 
Fur Seals, PhD diss., Univ. Alaska, Fairbanks, 2001, 1. 

124 Scheffer et ah, History of Scientific Study, 20. 

125 Oliver L. Austin Jr. and Ford Wilke, Japanese Fur Sealing, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Special 
Scientific Report, Wildlife no. 6, 1950, 21. 

126 Hornaday, Thirty Years War, 178, stated the treaty was signed in 1912; whereas Scheffer et ah, 

History of Scientific Study, 20, stated it was signed by the U.S., Japan, Russia and Great Britain on 
July 7, 1911, and ratified by Congress on Aug. 24, 1912; and Hanna’s The Alaska Fur-Seal Islands, 

40, stated that the treaty that included the United States, Great Britain, Japan and Russia was pro¬ 
claimed on Dec. 15, 1911. President William Howard Taft stated in an address to Congress “an act 
was adopted to give effect to the fur-seal treaty on July 7, 1911,” A Compilation of the Messages and 
Papers of the Presidents, Vol. 16 (NY: Bur. of National Literature, 1897), 7823. 

127 Hornaday, Thirty Years War, 181. 

128 Information about the St. George advance landing was found in a 1945 document, presumably 
written by Acting Agent and Caretaker for St. George Island, Carl Hoverson. The thirteen-page 
document summarizes the arrivals and departures of numerous vessels and individuals at St. George 
in 1944 and through Mar. 2, 1945. 

129 St. George Island Agent’s Annual Report, Apr. 6, 1945 (no page number). 

130 Ibid. 

131 Joshua Crowell Howes, Genealogy of the Howes Family in America (Yarmouth, MA: F. Hallett, 1892), 
249-439; Massachusetts Vital Records, 1841-1910, vol. 23 (18) and vol. 25 (332); New England 
Historic Genealogical Society, http://www.newenglandancestors.org/; U.S. Census, 1900, Brookline, 
MA, 299; U.S. Department of State, Passport Applications, 1795-1905; NARA pub. M1372, RG 59, 
1899, no. 9305; 1899, no. 9306; William Ensign Lincoln, Some Descendants of Stephen Lincoln (NY: 
Knickerbocker, 1930), 76; Massachusetts Historical Society, Manuscripts and Photographs, Mildred 
Cox Howes Diaries, Ms. N-1447; and Photographs (photo, coll. 500.77), http://www.masshist.org/ 
library/. 

132 Richard Parkhurst, Boston Looks Seaward: The Story of the Port, 1630-1940 (Boston: B. Humphries, 
1941), 95; and Alan Forbes, Some Merchants and Sea Captains of Old Boston; Being a Collection of 
Sketches of Notable Men and Mercantile Houses Prominent During the Early Half of the Nineteenth 
Century in the Commerce and Shipping of Boston (Boston: State Street Trust, 1918), 28-29. 

133 “Obituary Notes,” New York Times, Dec. 24, 1893, 5. 

134 Osborne Howes Jr., “The Fur-Seal Fishery in Alaska,” in Old and New (Boston: H.O. Houghton, 1870) 
vol. 1 (Apr.), 487-93. 

135 “Death List of a Day, Osborn Howes,” New York Times, Apr. 10, 1907, 7. 

136 David Starr Jordan, ed., The Fur Seals and Fur-Seal Islands of the North Pacific Ocean (Washington, 
DC: GPO, 1898) pt. 1, 26-7. 

137 “An Adventure in Behring Sea,” New York Times, Aug. 4, 1872, 2. 

138 Genealogical information regarding Alexandra Kashevarov taken from Pierce, Russian America, 219. 

139 Email from Rick Alexander to Betty Lindsay, Oct. 21, 2003. Mr. Alexander stated, “My Grandfather, 

Zeno Alexander, was born Rufus Huggins. He was named after one of Eli’s brothers, who was 
killed in the Lakota wars in Minnesota_According to family legend, my Grandfather spent his 


345 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


early years thinking he was an orphaned Native Alaskan child that had been adopted by the kindly 
Captain Huggins, to be raised by him and his sister Jane Holtsclaw. At some point during his teen 
years, he discovered that he was Eli’s illegitimate son—the result of an illicit union! Soon after, Rufus 
changed his name to Zeno Alexander, moved to Paris, married a woman from Marseille.” Zeno was 
considered an “excellent artist noted for his ability to make ‘masterful’ copies of famous masterpiec¬ 
es.” “Eli Huggins, ancestors and cousins,” Ancestry World Tree at Ancestry.com, submitted by Karen 
Higgins (accessed Oct. 22, 2003; note: Karen Higgins, not Huggins as in “Rufus Huggins”). 

140 Carolyn Thomas Foreman, “General Eli Lundy Huggins,” in Chronicles of Oklahoma 13, no. 3, 1935; 
Pierce, Russian America, 219-20; and “Eli Huggins, ancestors and cousins,” Ancestry World Tree at 
Ancestry.com (accessed Oct. 22, 2003). 

141 Pierce, Russian America, 220. 

142 “Army Posts Returns, St. Paul Island, Alaska,” NARA, Other Military, microcopy M617, roll 1538. 

143 Eli Lundy Huggins papers, 1862-1929, Bancroft Library, Berkeley, CA, manuscript no. 81/51c, box 
1. Copies of letters also appear in Oklahoma Historical Society Collection. 

144 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1900, 433-4. 

145 George A. Ramsdell, The History of Milford (Concord, NH: Rumford, 1901), 785; U.S. Census, 1880; 
“Hutchinson Obituary,” Montgomery County Sentinel, May 18, 1883, 3; and Montgomery County 
deeds, 1896. 

146 Mary Gordon Malloy and Marian W. Jacobs, Genealogical Abstracts: Montgomery County Sentinel, 
1855-1899 (Rockville, MD: Montgomery County Historical Society, 1986); Hutchinson Obituary, 
Montgomery County Sentinel, May 18, 1883, 3; “Descendants of Richard Hutchinson, b. 1602, 
Arnold, Nottinghamshire, England,” Ancestry.com, submitted by David Carlsen, dcarlsen@csranet. 
com (accessed Mar. 24, 2003); Pat Andersen, Montgomery Co. Historical Society via email to Betty 
A. Lindsay, Feb. 14, 2006; and Mark W. Willis, Montgomery Co. Historical Society to Betty A. 
Lindsay, Feb. 21, 2006. 

147 Ramsdell, The History of Milford, 785; U.S. Census, 1880; and Hutchinson Obituary, Montgomery 
County Sentinel, May 18, 1883, 3. 

148 Excerpts and comments provided by Mark W. Willis, Montgomery Co. Historical Society, via email 
to Betty Lindsay, Feb. 14, 2006. 

149 Maryland Historical Society, The Hillandaler (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1976), Mar. 5. 

150 John W. Hutchinson, Story of the Hutchinsons, Tribe of Jesse (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1896), 317; 
and Ramsdell, The History of Milford, 785. 

151 City of Baltimore, Guide to Baltimore (Baltimore, MD: J. Murphy, 1892), 71-3. 

152 Frank H. Sloss and Richard Pierce, “The Hutchinson, Kohl Story,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly 62, no. 
1 (1971): 1. 

153 “Hutchinson Obituary,” Montgomery County Sentinel, May 18, 1883, 3. 

154 Oppenheim & Co. efforts to retain dominance in the Alaska fur-seal trade are interestingly told by 
their emissary Emil Teichmann in A Journey to Alaska in the Year 1868: Being a Diary of the Late 
Emil Teichmann (New York: Argosy-Antiquarian, 1963). 

155 U.S. Cong., House, Committee on Ways and Means, Alaska Commercial Company, 44th Cong., 1st 
sess., H. Rep. no. 623 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1876), 16. 

156 Ibid., 121. 

157 U.S. Cong., House, Comm, on Ways and Means, The Alaska Commercial Company. Revenues to 
the United States Treasury purportedly reached $5,925,736.49 over the period July 1, 1870, to Aug. 
1887 (U.S. Congress, House, “Report from the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries of the 
House of Representatives,” in The Fur-Seal and Other Fisheries of Alaska: Investigation of the Fur- 
Seal and Other Fisheries of Alaska. 50th Cong., 2nd sess., H. Rep. no. 3883 (Washington, DC: GPO, 
1889), 371. 

158 U.S. Congress, House, Comm, on Ways and Means, Alaska Commercial Company, 111-2. 

159 Ibid., 118. 

160 Hutchinson Hill was named that day and is still known by that designation, although it was also re¬ 
ferred to as Sea Lion Hill. Niebaum had arrived on St. Paul Island in Dec. of 1867 and established an 
American Post. Reference: Gustave Niebaum Statement, The Bancroft Library, Oct. 16, 1883, bneg 
114: 7, p. k. 32, p. 65. 

161 U.S. Cong., House, Comm, on Ways and Means, Alaska Commercial Company, 132-3. 

162 Alaska Commercial Co. executive Hayward M. Hutchinson stated in his testimony before a congres- 


346 



Biographies H ♦ Notes 


sional committee in 1876 that 87,000 sealskins were taken in 1869. Later, during the same congres¬ 
sional investigation, he changed the number without clarifying comment to 69,000 sealskins taken. 
U.S. Cong., House, Comm, on Ways and Means, Alaska Commercial Company, 133-4. 

Also, Special Indian Commissioner Vincent Colyer and Colonel Frank Wicker conducted an 
investigation on the taking of sealskins and the treatment of the Aleuts during 1869. For additional 
insight into the discrepancy over the number of seal skins permitted and taken that year, see Vincent 
Colyer, 1869, Report of the Hon. Vincent Colyer, United States Special Indian Commissioner, on the 
Indian Tribes and their Surroundings in Alaska Territory, from Personal Observation and Inspection 
in 1869. Bancroft Library file 19633B, Univ. of California, Berkeley. (Also in U.S. Congress, House, 
Letter from the Secretary of the Interior concerning Fur-Seal Fisheries of Alaska, 41st Cong., 2nd sess., 
Ex. Doc. no. 144, 1870.) 

163 U.S. Cong., House, Comm, on Ways and Means, Alaska Commercial Company, 133-4. 

164 Ibid., 13.. 



pAPTURING THE jbEA-LlONS. 

Springing the alarm — Sea-lion Neck , St . Paul's Island—November 18, 1872. 


Capturing the Sea-lions. Springing the Alarm—Sea-lion Neck, St. Pauls Island November 18, 1872. 
Henry Wood Elliott, Report on the Prybilov Group, or Seal Islands of Alaska, 1873 


347 
















Aleut boy in front of barabara at St. Paul Island, 1914. (NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, RG 
22-9S-ADMC-2S6) 






348 




I 


Igadagax 

Aleutian Islands Hunter and Explorer 
Genealogy 

Igadagax was the son of Unimak Island Toion Akkagnikax, born sometime before 1786. 
Discovery of the Seal (Pribilof) Islands 

Traditional Unangan (Aleut) folklore recounts the discovery of the Tanax-Amix 1 or Seal 
Islands by Igadagax, 2 the son of an Unangan toion (chief) on Unimak Island. 3 The first 
written record of this intriguing story is in Ivan Veniaminov’s 1840 publication Zapiski 
ob ostrovakh Unalashkinskago otdeyla, which has been translated in whole or part by 
several linguists. The version these authors relied upon was translated by Dr. Lydia T. 
Black and Richard H. Geoghegan and published by Limestone Press in 1984. 4 Artist and 
fur-seal naturalist and advo¬ 
cate Henry Wood Elliott may 
have been the first to publish 
Veniaminov’s tale in English, 5 
and Waldemar Jochelson the 
second person. Elliott’s trans¬ 
lation differs markedly from 
Jochelson’s, and only in some 
details from Dr. Lydia Black’s 
given below, but the general 
concepts are clear from all. 

Iggadaagix, son of a 
certain Unimak toion by 
the name of Akkagnikax, 



Aleut in an iqyax. (NAA, Joseph Stanley-Brown Lantern Slides, 
lot 54-246.) 


349 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


while traveling around in his baidarka [iqyax], had been carried away from shore by a storm 
coming up from the southeast. It being impossible for him to approach his home shore 
or any neighboring place, he had been forced to commit himself to the mercy of the wind 
and had, so it seems, after three or four days, been carried to the island of [St. Paul], the 
northernmost of the Pribilovs. Here he remained until spring, hunting various animals. In 
the spring, during clear weather, he saw the peaks of Unimak and decided to put to sea and, 
after a voyage of three or four days, safely reached his native Unimak, bringing with him 
many sea otter tails and rnordki [the larger part of the sea otter skin, possibly with snouts]. 
They [Aleut storytellers] point out on St. Paul Island a spot where his yurta is supposed 
to have been. I find nothing improbable or impossible in this narrative because, by the 
testimony of inhabitants of St. Paul, the peaks of Unimak are visible in clear weather in the 
spring time, and Mr. Sarychev has heard the word Ami: t, in an ancient song, which [the 
Aleuts] either were unable or unwilling to explain, and which is the ancient name of the 
Pribvlov Islands. 1 2 3 4 5 6 


1 The Unangan words Tanax-Amix, for the islands discovered by IgadagaX, are spelled variously in the 
literature, see Waldemar Jochelson, History, Ethnology and Anthropology of the Aleut (Washington, 
DC: Carnegie Institute, 1933), 76; and Knut Bergsland, Aleut Dictionary (Fairbanks: Univ. of Alaska, 
Alaska Native Language Center, 1994), 66. Translations for these words include “The Land-Uncle” or 
“The Island-Uncle” by Jochelson, History, Ethnology and Anthropology, 76, and William S. Laughlin, 
Aleuts: Survivors of the Bering Land Bridge (NY: Holt, Reinhart, Winston, 1980), 12; they have also 
been translated as “Mother’s Brother.” 

2 The spelling and phonetic distinctions of “Igadagax?’ vary among transliterators; this spelling 
is taken from Knut Bergsland, Ancient Aleut Personal Names = Kadaangim Asangin/Asangis: 
Materials from the Billings Expedition, 1790-1792 (Fairbanks: Univ. of Alaska, Alaska Native 
Language Center, 1998), 200. The spelling “Igadagax "comes from Jochelson’s History, Ethnology and 
Anthropology, 77. Ivan Veniaminov s Notes on the Islands of the Unalashka District [Zapiski ob ostro- 
vakh Unalashkinskago otdeyla ], ed. Richard A. Pierce, trans. Lydia T. Black and R. H. Geoghegan 
(Kingston, ON: Limestone Press, 1984), 134, apparently relied on Henry Wood Elliott, A Report 
Upon the Conditions of Affairs in the Territory of Alaska (Washington: GPO, 1875), 241, who also 
performed a transliteration of Veniaminov’s text using the phonetic spelling, Eegad-dahgeek. The 
authors are aware that other spellings are also employed. 

3 Anthropologist William S. Laughlin stated that an Aleut named “Ivory Smasher” was “one of the 
Aleut heroes who landed” at St. Paul Island before the arrival of the Russians. These authors did 
not learn of any other “heroes,” so it is unclear whether Laughlin was referring to Igadagax as 
Ivory Smasher or someone else ( Aleuts: Survivors of the Bering Land Bridge, 12 and 113). Laughlin 
also stated that Ivory Smasher came from the island of Tigalda, rather than Unimak as stated by 
Veniaminov, Notes on the Islands, 134, suggesting that he is not the same individual as Igadagax 
{Aleuts: Survivors, 113). 

4 Veniaminov, Notes on the Islands, 134-5. 

5 Henry Wood Elliott, A Report Upon the Conditions of Affairs, 241. 

6 The translation given here of Veniaminov, Notes on the Islands District, 134-5, was interpreted 
by Dr. Lydia Black based in part on an earlier translation by Richard Geoghegan (unpublished); a 
comparison of the two serves to enlighten the lay reader, not to assume that any translation neces¬ 
sarily represents the exact written meaning of the original author. Knut Bergsland, Ancient Aleut 
Personal Names, 200, suggested “lgadagax u could mean “monster kind of scarecrow,” or “starfish” in 
the eastern Aleut dialect. Knut Bergsland , Aleut Dictionary, 704, provided the Aleut word “Iqyax:” 
for the baidarka or kayak. 


350 




J 


Jackson, Sheldon (1834-1909) 

Presbyterian Missionary, Educator 

First Superintendent of Education in Alaska, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1885 
Introduced Siberian Reindeer to Alaska, 1891 

Genealogy 

Sheldon Jackson was born on May 18, 1834, at 
Minaville, New York, to Samuel Clinton Jackson 
and Delia (Sheldon) Jackson. Sheldon Jackson 
died in Alaska on May 2, 1909. 1 

Biographical Sketch 

Sheldon Jackson graduated in 1855 from Union 
College at Schenectady, New York, and in 1858 
from Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, 

New Jersey. He served as a missionary at Indian 
missions in twelve states before going to Alaska. 

In 1885, he became U.S. General Agent of 
Education for Alaska. Besides his work to intro¬ 
duce the reindeer as an additional food source for 
Alaska Natives, Jackson established missions at 
Fort Wrangell, Sitka, and Point Barrow. Historic 
Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka (now closed) 
began as one of Jackson’s industrial schools. Also Sheldon Jackson in furs. (Presbyterian 
in Sitka, the Sheldon Jackson Museum houses J ' 

nearly 5,000 pieces of Jackson’s Alaska travel memorabilia. He was an author and enthu¬ 
siastic public speaker who delivered more than 3,000 missionary addresses between 1869 



351 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


and 1900. The Sheldon Jackson Papers are housed at the Presbyterian Historical Society 
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 2 

Jackson prefaced his 1895 explanation for bringing reindeer to Alaska with observa¬ 
tions about the plight of other mammals that had been decimated by commerce in the 
Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean: 

As the great herds of buffalo that once roamed the Western prairies have been 
exterminated for their pelts, so the whales have been sacrificed for the fat that incased their 
bodies and the bone that hung in their mouths [baleen]. With the destruction of the whale 
one large source of food supply for the natives has been cut off. 

Another large supply was derived from the walrus, which once swarmed in great numbers 
in those northern seas. But commerce wanted more ivory, and the whalers turned their 
attention to the walrus, destroying thousands annually for the sake of their tusks.... The 
walrus, as a source of food supply, is already very scarce. 

The sea lions, once so common in Bering Sea, are now becoming so few in number that it is 
with difficulty that the natives procure a sufficient number of skins to cover their boats.... 

In the past the natives, with tireless industry, caught and cured, for use in their long 
winters, great quantities of fish, but American canneries have already come to some of their 
streams, and will soon be found on all of them, both carrying the food out of the country, 
and by their wasteful methods, destroying the future supply.... [A]nd the business still in 
its infancy—means starvation to the native races in the near future. 3 

With those and other dire observations, Sheldon Jackson, United States General 
Agent of Education in Alaska, justified the introduction of reindeer, a domesticated cari¬ 
bou, to Alaska for Native subsistence. 

In 1891, Jackson journeyed to Siberia aboard the Revenue Cutter Bear to determine 
whether reindeer could be purchased from Natives in Siberia and then be transported 
alive. Private donations ($2,146) helped cover the cost of the venture after Congress had 
declined to allocate the requested funds ($15,000). The Siberian Natives, “knowing noth¬ 
ing of the use of money,” accepted trade goods as barter for sixteen reindeer. With the 
help of Captain Michael Healy of the Bear, he transported the animals to Alaska. Despite 
severe Arctic weather, the reindeer survived aboard ship for some three weeks. The crew 
of the Bear finally landed them in good condition at Amaknak Island, in the harbor of 
Unalaska. 4 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

With Dr. Samuel Call, Sheldon Jackson arrived at St. Paul Island on June 1, 1892, aboard 
the Bear, with Captain Michael Healy again in command. The men spent the day evalu¬ 
ating environmental conditions on the island and the potential need by the Natives for 
domestic reindeer as a supplementary source of subsistence. 5 However, it was not until 
1911, with a push by Alaskan Fur-Seal Service Assistant Agent Ezra W. Clark, that rein¬ 
deer were introduced to St. Paul and St. George islands (see Ezra Westcote Clark II biog¬ 
raphy). 


352 





Biographies J ♦ Jackson - Jochelson 


Jochelson, Waldemar (Vladimir Il’ich Iokhel’son) 
(1855-1937) 

Anthropologist 

Genealogy 

Waldemar Jochelson (Vladimir Il’ich Iokhel’son) was born in Vilna (aka Vilnius), 
Lithuania. 6 

Biographical Sketch 

Waldemar Jochelson became an anarchist within the revolutionary and terrorist organi¬ 
zation Peoples Will (Narodnaya Volya) while a university student in Vilnius, Lithuania. 
Eventually, the state arrested him for his activities and sentenced him to three years of 
solitary confinement and ten years of exile in northeastern Siberia. In Siberia, he and 
fellow revolutionaries became interested in the ethnology and orthography of Siberian 
Natives. His publications resulting from this area of intense interest led to a leadership 
role on a Russian Geographical Society-sponsored expedition. That expedition’s success 
led in turn to others, including the Aleut-Kamchatka Expedition, also sponsored by the 
Russian Geographical Society. The Aleut-Kamchatka Expedition took Jochelson to the 
Aleutians and Pribilof Islands. According to Unangam Tunuu linguists Knut Bergsland 
and Moses Dirks (Jochelson, Aleut Tales and Narratives, 7), Jochelson engaged “talented 
assistants, managed to find the few surviving storytellers of the time, and so rescued from 
oblivion a large body of Aleut traditions.” 


Waldemar Jochelson sits atop 
stepladder with a young woman 
(niece Lidia Domherr?) lean- 
ing against him. Wife Dina 
Lazareona Jochelson is seated 
on a couch with a dog. An un¬ 
identified young man is seated 
on the floor. (Alaska State 
Library, Michael Z. Vinokouroff 
Photograph Coll., P243-4-176.) 



353 

































Pribilof Islands: The People 



Waldemar Jochelson (far right) and wife Dina Lazareona Jochelson on board a revenue cutter. (Alaska 
State Library, Michael Z. Vinokouroff Photograph Coll., P243-4-174.) 


Jochelson himself published only a very small part of his material, in 1923, and the corpus 
published in the present edition [Aleut Tales and Narratives\ is no longer complete, but 
still it is a copious and irreplaceable source of Aleut lore. 

Today ... very little is left of the original Aleut storytelling tradition (apart from fairy tales 
and other stories borrowed from the Russians). The Jochelson collection constitutes nearly 
all that remains of this heritage and thus is of great importance, not only to specialists 
and to the general public interested in such matters, but also, not the least, to the Aleuts 
themselves as part of their cultural identity. 7 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Agent Walter Lembkey entered comments into the Agent’s Log about Jochelson’s visit to 
St. Paul Island in 1910: 

Dr. Jochelson has been making ethnological studies of the natives of the Aleutian Islands, 

Kodiak and the littoral of Bering Sea and came here for the purpose of continuing his 
investigations here. He works under the auspices of the Royal Geographic Society of 
Russia. 8 

And from Lembkey’s Log on July 19, 1910: 

Shortly after the [U.S. Revenue Cutter] MANNING left her anchorage, a strange large 
steamer was sighted.... As the fog shut in, we could make out the MANNING steaming 
toward her at full speed. Later the fog lifted and disclosed the MANNING lying by the 
steamer. The latter was soon seen to be flying the Russian flag.... The MANNING then 
left her, and the [U.S. Revenue Cutter] PERRY which had come from North East Point... 
anchored off the flagstaff well inside the stranger. 


354 







Biographies J ♦ Jochelson 


About 5 p.m. a boat from the latter came ashore. From Lieutenant Schildknecht, in charge 
of the boat, it was learned that the strange vessel was the transport KOLIMA of the Russian 
Imperial Navy, from Petropavlovsk ... and that its object in calling here was to take aboard 
Professor Jochelson, and to transport him, his wife and his collection to Kamschatka [sic]. 

The same log reported that the Jochelsons boarded the Kolima for Unalaska and then 
Petropavlovsk. 

[ochelson recorded a version of the Aleut tale of discovery of Tanax Amix from Isidor 
Solovyov at Unalaska in 1909. Here it is in translation by Knut Bergsland and Moses 
Dirks. 9 (See Igadagax biography for Ivan Veniaminov’s version as translated by Dr. Lydia 
Black.) 


Tanax-Amix* 

1 ChagnachXilaX went out of his house, got up on top of his house and began to make 
observations. Recalling what had happened on TanaX-AmiX, he became violent. 3 While he 
was meditating, SiluX-AliglaX came out to him. 4 “My beloved cousin, you could still tell us 
about what happened on TanaX-AmiX, but you are apparently still not going to do it?” 

5 "One like you should not say it like that, fool.” 

gLetting his two bumblebees out of his nose at him, letting his two blowflies out of his eyes 
at him, b letting his eyes down along the ridge of his nose, c performing as a demon before 
him, he made him step back from him so that he fell into his house. 

7 Then he got into his killer whale [form] and went to sea. g While he was traveling under 
the water, he killed an animal, a sea lion bull which had none older than itself, and took it 
ashore. g Putting it in the crook of his arms, he ascended Makushin Volcano with it. 1Q He 
put it down between two hills d of this plain. c 1 ] Then he came down and spent the night in 
his house. 

12 The next morning, when daylight came, he again got up on top of his house. 13 While he 
was there, his cousin Silux-Aliglax again came out to him. 14 He said to his cousin, 15 “Well, 
stop being like that and take us to TanaX-AmiX” 

1 g“That’s how you kept saying it yesterday, fool!” he said and began to let his two 
bumblebees appear out of his nose at him. 17 He began to let his two blowflies appear out 
of his eyes at him. 1 g He took off his parka. 1 g He let his eyes down along the ridge of his 
nose at him. 20 Tucking up his sleeves before him, he began to perform as a demon for him. 

2 ^ Making him step back from him, he had him enter into his house. 

22 After that he put on his largest killer whale [skin] as a guise and stepped into the sea. 
23 He killed the largest whale. 24 Heading ashore with it, after he got up on land with it, 
putting it in the crook of his arms, he ascended with it again. 25 Taking it over the plain/ he 
put it down between the two hills of the plain. 26 Thinking that he was strong, he rejoiced. 
27 And so he reached his house and spent the night again. 

2g The next morning when daylight came, he got up on top of his house and began to make 
observations again. 2g His cousin went out to him and said to him, 30 “That’s what you could 
do, that’s what you could say, so get ready,” he said and turned to him, but he turned just to 
where he had been. 6 31 Being so many, he made for himself 1 only the forepart of a tent 1 and 
spent the night. 

32 The next morning he got into his killer whale [form] and stepped into the sea along with 
his war party. 33 He said to his war party, 34 “Not [along] the bottom of the sea, not [along] 
the surface of the sea, travel only by way of the subsurface of the sea!” 34b And all of them 
got into their killer whale [forms] and set out. 


355 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


35 When they had traveled like that for a while, they began to surface to breathe. 3g They 
saw that Unalaska Island had become very low [as seen from there] where they surfaced. 
37 While they were thus breathing, the chief of the war party again said to them, 3g “Not 
[along] the bottom of the sea, not [along] the surface of the sea, travel only by way of the 
subsurface of the sea!” 

39 Getting into their killer whale [forms] they traveled on. 4Q After a while they again began 
to surface to breathe. 41 They saw that Tanax-Amix was lying there like a seat pad 1 floating 
on the sea. 

42 And so one by one they began getting into their baidarkas. 43 And Chagnachxilax put 
on a gut parka which the gut of a humpback whale that had none older than itself was 
not enough to make, and which was pieced out with its throat-folds. 44 He let his two 
bumblebees out of his eyes one after another. 45 He let his two blowflies out of his nose 
one after another. 4g He let his eyes down along the ridge of his nose. 4/ Loading in six fur 
seals, he paddled along with his war party. 4g Having paddled close to land, he stopped with 
his war party. 49 “Over there one could not get, also over there one could not get. 5Q From 
where you are do not move a bit farther. 51 If I am permitted to get ashore safely, I will make 
a signal over my head to you like this.” 

51 He paddled away from his war party. 52 Having paddled for a while, he landed on the 
beach below the village. 53 His nephew Akaagniqax came down to the beach to him. 

54 “After he discovered and reached this island Tanax-Amix, baidarkas began to paddle to 
stir its waters not long ago.” 

55 “Yes, your father Igadagax used to tell me that when one tried to discover and did 
discover this island Tanax-Amix, he became envious for it k and came here.” 

5g When he got out of his baidarka and stepped on a rock, he cracked it. 57 “Put my baidarka 
farther up on the beach for me to a place where it will decay, you fool!” 

sg And he ordered his nephew to pick up his baidarka [and carry it] on his right-hand side. 
59 And he picked up the baidarka and started to walk with it. g0 He went up the beach with 
it until he (the uncle) saw that he tore on it (the boat), one after another, the six fur seals he 
had as a bracelet . 1 g1 “Is that all right?” he said to his uncle. 

62 "I told you to put it farther up, didn’t I, you fool!” 

63 He saw that his fingers were stretched ." 1 g4 Without tearing off a single blade of grass, he 
fell face-down onto the baidarka. 

65 Chagnachxilax stepped over to his baidarka and took out the waterbag made of the 
urinary bladder of a humpback whale, emptied the water out of it, wrung it out, and gave 
it to his nephew Akaagniqax saying, 66 “Bring back to me in it only the life water of your 
father Igadagax, do not bring back to me in it water for killing, you fool!” 

67 When the water was brought down to him, he poured it out and said, g8 “Do not bring me 
again water for killing, fool, but bring me in it only your father’s life water.” 

69 When the life water was brought to him, he began to wash himself with it. 7Q After 
washing himself, he put his sleeve upright." 71 The baidarkas began to land, and after 
jumping out, they all took their baidarkas up on the beach. 

72 lgadagax! s son Akaagniqax went up and said to his father, 73 “Strong demons have landed, 
and my strength you made so that it wouldn’t give out has given out, so do not do what you 
usually do, do not carry on a frightful thing, a demon-war. 74 But, woman dwarf," arrange 
rather a feast for me.” 

75 “They are people from the mainland , 11 they have fine things, although they are not that 
numerous, q being killed, being appropriated, their belongings may be appropriated.” 


356 



Biographies J ♦ Jochelson 


76 “Do not even call on me!” 

77 When the baidarkas had all landed, the wife of a bull fur seal came down. 78 He saw her 
jump on the baidarkas, bite off all the spears on them/ and come at him. 7g When she was 
about to jump onto his baidarka, he made her fall in the crook of his arms and said to her, 
80 “Tell your father that I tell you to tell him that I want to feel the wound of the teeth of a 
beast like myself, of a demon like myself.” 5 81 She went up. 82 ChagnachxilaX saw Igadagax 
bring down his treat, freshly boiled meat. 

Jochelson’s explanatory note: 

From the history of the Russian travels in the Pacific Ocean we know that the Pribilov 
Islands were uninhabited at the time of their discovery. They were discovered by Gerasim 
Pribilov, whose name was given to the islands, in 1786. From the contents of this heroic 
narration one may draw the conclusion that the Pribilovs were discovered and visited, or 
even inhabited, by Aleut before the Russians, if not in very old times. Of course, we do not 
know how far this tradition may be regarded as historical material. By the name Tanax- 
Amix (Land Uncle)' in some texts are called the islands St. Paul and St. George, while in 
others St. Paul only is called by this name. I give here only a part of the narration, told in 
Unalaska by the blind Aleut Solovyov, as far as it was translated by me into Russian with 
the assistance of my Aleut interpreters, and I am sorry to say that the remainder two thirds 
of the text I am not able now to translate. The language of the text is very far from the 
present spoken dialects of the Aleut language, with which I am familiar." 

Jochelson’s footnotes: 

a. Jochelson’s note: “This is the old name for the Pribilof Islands and means ‘Land-Uncle.’ 
Thus also was called St. Paul Island.” The name, however, is a stem in -g-, see sentence 2, 
whereas ami-x ‘maternal uncle’ is a vowel stem. Cf. (h)am/g-‘vicinity, country’. 

b. Jochelson’s note: “He put on a mask, from which bees and flies went out.” 

c. Jochelson’s note: “The eyes appeared in a vertical position with their cut.” 

d. Mountain peaks with a depression between them (Akutan 1983). 

e. Alaxsxix otherwise means ‘mainland! Alaska Peninsula. 

f. Here the meaning ‘mainland’ seems more appropriate. 

g. Lit. ‘just to his place’; he was gone. 

h. So ms.; text rather “became.” 

i. So ms.; Jochelson’s free translation reads “There were outside in a tent many warriors 
whom he joined and with whom he remained for the night.” 

j. Grass mat or skin to sit on in a baidarka. 

k. Was desirous to have it for himself (G. Marsh). Ms. “being pleased with it.” 

l. Or: place for carrying bracelets, tamigagiilux (Jochelson’s vocabulary with reference to 
this text). 

m. Ms. "became contracted”; Jochelson’s note: “From the weight of the skin boat of the 
uncle.” 

n. As a signal to his men. 

o. Jochelson’s note: “Woman dwarf or little woman is a caressing nickname. By such names 
the old Aleut called beloved children, even boys.” 

p. From Alaska Peninsula. 

q. Ms. “although they were more numerous than at present.” 

r. So Jochelson’s vocabulary with reference to this text. Ms. “the nooses for their throwing 
lances (on the skin boats).” 

s. Jochelson’s free translation: “Tell thy father Igadax that I am such a beast and a devil like 
himself and that I am ready to make him feel how my teeth can wound. 

t. Cf. note to the title. 


357 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


u. The content of several passages is certainly peculiar, but apart from some irregular 
endings, such as the ones corrected in sentences 16-19, 24, 53, the grammatical aspects of 
the text appear to be normal. 

Tanax-Amix 

I Chagnachxilax ulaam ilaan isix, ulaam kangan akaagalix, sngaluqalinax. 2 Malix Tanax- 
Amigim kugan maqan ilaam agatalix, txin qaguxsiqalinax. 3 Malix aan’gilakaadalikux, Silux- 
Aliglarrf ngaan slaagaqaa. 4 “Ayang achaachang, Tanax-Amigim kugan malgaqan ngiin 
ixtaliikaktxin-aan, malakan ingamaliimin agnax axtaltxin?” 

5 “Amaan txin liidam ingamatakin ixtalguudaakaqangin-ulux ingaya. ” 

& Aanasnaadataaxkin angusiim ilaan ngaan qakaagamixtachxikan, uumgiikadtaaxkin daam 
ilkiin ngaan qakaagamixtachxikan, dakin iguum angakin unaanutalix, angadan qugax 
aadakan, ilkiigiim ingsachxikan, u lag an Han itxikuu awa. 

7 Aqadaagiim, agluum Han agalix, chagatikux awa. 8 Malix alagum siniga ayxaasalixtakum, 
algax uginam ludagiiyulux asxasix, akuugaasakux awa. Cj Chaam qixkin ilikin axsxan, Ayag 
in ngaan angaasaqalikuu awa. ]Q Udaan alaxsxim qamtiqdagan quchxikin ignikuu awa. 

II Aqadaagiim, akaagan kimsix, ulaam Han txin ukunikux awa. 

]Z lngan qilax angalix aqakug-aan, ulaam kangan akaagaagutakux awa. 
u lngamatalixtakux, amaan asagagan Silux-Aliglam ngaan slaagaagutakuu awa. 

]4 Amaan asagaam-aan tunuugutakux awa. 15 “Qanang, ingamataqadalix, Tanax-ngiin 
Amixsiisaaxtxin. ” 

]6 “lngamatakin ixtalguudadalaaganatxin inga,” iisaqadaagiim, aanasnaadataaxkin 
angusiim ilikiin [ngaan] lixtataqalikuu b awa. ]7 Uumgiikadataaxkin daam ilkiin ngaan 
lixtataqalikuiS awa. ]8 Sakin iqitikux? awa. 1 Cj Dakin iguum angakin ngaan unaanutikuif 
awa. 2Q Angadan txin qikumaxsikan, ngaan qugax aadaqalikuu awa. z 1 Ilkiigiim 
ingsachkikan, ulagan Han qanguchxikuu awa. 

zz Aqadaagiim, agluum ludaagiigusaa igiim ugduxsxiisalix, alagux tadakux awa. Z3 Alam 
ludaagiigusaa asXatikux awa. Z4 Akuunusakan, t tanax ngaan akuugaasakam aqadaagiim, 
chaam qixkin ilkin axsxan, angaasaqaliigutakuu awa. zs Alaxsxim qudgan maasakan, 
alaxsxim qamtiqdagan quchxikin ignikuu awa. Z6 Kayugixtanaan anuxtalix, txin 
kaangunikux awa. z? Malix ulaan ulix txin ukuniigutakux awa. 

zs lngan qilax angalix aqakug-aan, ulaam kangan akaagalix, sngaluqaliigutakux awa. 
zg Asagagan adan slaagakan, ngaan tunukuu awa. 3Q “Maasaakaqaan amaya, iXtaakaqaan 
amaya, malix txin axsaaxtxin, ” iisakan, ngaan alakuun, isxaligan Han alakuu awa. 
3 ^Amaang asanax akum, ulasum qikusudalii 1 ' txin isix, txin ukunikux awa. 

3Z lngan qilax alitxuun agluum Han agaasalix, alagux ngaan tadaasakux awa. 33 Alitxuum- 
aan tunukux awa. 34 “Alagum ulgayulux, alagum qachxayulux, alagum chngudaa agacha 
ayxaasaaxtxichi. ” 34 bMalix usungin aglumdin ilin agalix, txidin ayxatikun awa. 

35 Ayxalix amamatalixtakun, qasalix angiqalikun awa. 3f Nawan-Alaxsxan uda anikatudag 
ulux isix qasaxtakudin ukuxtaqalikun awa. 3? Agumatalix angilikun, alitxum tukugan ngiin 
tunuugutakungin awa. 38 “Alagum ulgayulux, alagum qachxayulux, alagum chngudalii 
imchi ayxadusaaxtxichi. ” 

3g Aglumchi ilin agalix, txidin ayxatikun awa. 4Q Amamataaqaltakun, angiigin qasalaqaliig 
utakun awa. 41 Tanax-Amix uda inqiilugim alagum kugan anikatalgaqaa liidatalix 
ukuxtaqalikun awa. 

4Z Malix iqamang Han agalaqalikun awa. 43 Malix Chagnachxilax alamagim ludagiganulux 
an’gan isxalakan qunalitxin isxaasagan chigdaganaa chukux awa. 44 Aanasnaadataaxkin 
daam ilkiin qakaagalachxikux awa. 43 Angusiim ilkiin uumgiikadataaxkin qakaagalachxikux 
awa. 4& Dakin iguum angakin unaanutikux awa. 4? Atuung laaqudax usilix, alitxuun asix 
[txin] iqagitikux awa. 48 lqagilix, tanax amaatxagulux isagiim, alitxuun igiim anikadusakux 


358 




Biographies J ♦ Jochelson 


awa - 49 “Ikuya ilan agalgaakaqagulux, ikuya kayux ilan agalgaakaqagulux. SQ Awaagan 
txichi ayugniidalilagaaXtxichi. 51 Ukudigalix 1 akuugachXisxagung, waan kamging kangan ug 
laguX imchi aguungan waya. ” 

S} AHtxuum ilaan txin iqagitikuX awa. 5Z lqagilix amamaaqaltakum, tanadgusim chuqan 
tigikuX awa. 53 Umnigan Akaagniqam' ngaan sakaagakuu awa. S4 “Udan TanaX-AmiX ag 
asxan uungan, k alaguu chiklagnigadaaXta[X], iqan ama iqagiqaliXtalaaganan.” 

ss “Aang, awan adaan IgadagaX udan Tanax-Amix agayalgalix agasxakuXigiim gilginiisalix 
aqanaarf 11 nung iisadanaX. " h 

56 Iqaam ilaan igalix, nugim kugan tadakum, nux chaxtikux awa. 57 “Udan iqang akungun 
ilan asxaagan ilan nung agilguudaaxtxin. ” 

s8 Malix aman umniin udan iqaan chaagamguugiim adan suuxta[x] matikux awa. 59 Malix 
aman iqax sulix igiim aygaxtusakux awa. 60 Akuunusaliiglikuunatuung laaqudax 
tamigdagiiluXtanaan ngaan isilaasakuu p ukuxtaqalikuu awa. 61 “Alix ama?” amiim-aan 
iisakux awa. 

62 “Akuudaasan agilguudaaqaan, imin ixtalguudakating. ” 

63 Adqungin aqakun ukuxtaqalikuu awa. 64 Ataqan qiigax isilakan, iqam kugan usux 
achigasakux awa. 

6S Chagnachxilax iqaam-aan txin ayugnilix, alamagim tugaadigan taangadgusiganaa igulix, 
taangaa yulix, qimulix, umniim Akaagniqam-aan axsix, ngaan tunukux awa. 66 “Adamin Ig 
adagam taangagan angagii agacha ilan nung aqaasaaqaan, taangam asxayaalanaa ilan 
nung aqaasalguudalagaaqaan. ” 

6? Taangax ngaan sakaagaalaagiim, aman taangax yuqadaagiim, tunukux awa. 
6& “Taangam asxayaalanaa ilan atasix nung aqaasalguudalagaaqaan, taga adamin 
taangagan angagii agacha ilan nung aqaasaaqaan. ” 

69 Taangam angagii igiim uulaangan, igiim gulaasaqalikutf awa. 7Q Txin gulaqadaagiim, 
aman amgaan' chuchaxtikux awa. 7] lqan tixtuqalikun, igichaadaloC aqadaamchi, iqadin 
akuugaadgukun awa. 

72 lgadagam laa Akaagniqax akaagalix, adaam-aan tunukux. ?3 “Qugan kayutu[ngi] 
n tixtalix, kayuning inadalagaaxtan aguqatxin inasxalix, malix aman aguxtadaan 
agulagaaxtxin, iganax qugaguusix agulagaaxtxin. 74 Taga, ayagam inulaga, ting qag 
anaadax agacha aguliiqalaaxtxin. ” 

75 “Alaxsxiin awa, maayusigan awa, awaang ‘ asaagalilakagin, asxasxalix, maayusxalix, 
maayungin maayugaakan awa. ” 

76 “Ting iidalilagaaqalaaxtxin ingaya. ” 

77 lqan tixtugikun-iin, aataagim ayagaa kimkalikux awa. 78 lqan kungin igichxilix, 
chamgina[a]gasingin kigluxsix, igiim aqakux ukuxtaqalikuu awa. ?9 lqaam kugan igisag 
an agiingan, u chaam qixkin ilikin achixchxikan, ngaan tunukuu awa. 8Q “Adamin-aan ting 
iisaaxtxin, algaqasing, qugaqasing agalugan unaa tutaatulix, ngaan [iisaaxjtxin ilting, 
ngaan nung iisada.” g] Angakux awa. 82 lgadagax aman duxtaachagiisiin, ulum qangasaag 
uu kimusachxikux, amaan Chagnachxilam ukukuu awa. 

a. Ms. AligluX; cf. (13). 

b. Ms. -kukix. 

c. Ms. -kukix, -kix added by hand 

d. Ms. -kukix. 

e. Ms. -kukix. 

f. Ms. -lix. 


359 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


g. Ms. -lix. 

h. Uncertain word. 

i. Ms. Ukidgalix. 

j. Ms. Akagniqam. The name could mean “Made to get up there.” 

k. Ms. agasxanunan. 

l. Ms. -kuu. 

m. Ms. aqartax 

n. Ms. -qax. 

o. Ms. -kum. 

p. Ms. -kuX. 

q. Ms. x-(western dialect); likewise in sentence 70. 

r. Ms. amxaan (western dialect). 

s. Ms. /x/-(western dialect); likewise in sentence 78, 79. 

t. Ms. ahwan ‘those’ (impossible translation). 

u. Ms. agahan. 

Numerous interpretations of the discovery by Igadagax of Tanax-Amix have been re¬ 
ported, and each is clearly based upon a common theme, but each is clearly an interpreta¬ 
tion by the storyteller as well. Oral histories and story traditions fulfilled important social 
and cultural roles in pre-literate societies. They disseminated vital information, taught 
accepted behavior and practices, and entertained. Modern western people face challeng¬ 
es to understanding and appreciating oral traditions—first, because stories come to us 
through the filter of ethnographers or ethnohistorians; and second, because oral histories 
and lore from pre-literate peoples do not fit with modern western patterns of knowledge 
and thinking, which value linear sequence and chronology . 10 


Johnston, Edward Clyde ( 1887 - 1951 ) 

Clerk and Naturalist, U.S. Fish Commission steamer Albatross 

Agent, U.S. Department of Commerce, St. George Island, 1919-1920 and 1922-1925 

Agent, St. Paul Island, 1925-1927 

Superintendent, U.S. Department of the Interior, Pribilof Islands, 1939-1948 
Genealogy 

Edward Clyde Johnston was born to Renwick Clyde and Mae (Kinne) Johnston on 
September 9, 1887, in Cottonwood Falls, Kansas. In 1918, 11 Edward Johnston married 
Ella Jeanette Henry, born May 29, 1897, at Sellersberg, Indiana, to James A. and Ella 
M. Henry . 12 Edward and Ella Johnston had one child, a son, Earl, born in Alaska on July 
27, 1920, at St. George Island . 13 Edward C. Johnston died from a heart attack at Seattle, 
Washington, on April 9, 1951. 14 His son Earl Johnston had died in Seattle 10 years earlier, 
on December 26, 1941. 15 Ella Johnston died at Seattle, also of a heart attack, in March 
1966. 16 


360 




Biographies J ♦ Jochelson - Johnston 


Biographical Sketch 

Edward Johnston was a clerk and naturalist for 
the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries aboard the steamer 
Albatross before becoming an agent on the Seal 
Islands. When not working in Alaska, he resided 
at his poultry farm in Petaluma, Sonoma County, 
California, with his wife and son. 17 After Johnston 
died, a friend recalled, “Edward Johnston was 
happiest when he could leave behind the cares of 
the office and spend a few day and nights [collect¬ 
ing specimens] in some of the beautiful collecting 
locales of the West.” 18 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Edward Johnston became a government agent 
at the Seal Islands in 1919, and brought his wife, 
Ella, to the island at that time. He filled his spare 
time as a botanist, butterfly and moth taxono¬ 
mist, and avid photographer. For further relax¬ 
ation, Johnston “increased the known species of 
Heterocera [moths] from eight to twenty species” 
on the Pribilof Islands. 19 

According to a letter written by former 
Pribilof Islands Fur-Seal Program Director C. 
Howard Baltzo, the California Academy of 
Sciences in San Francisco was the conservator of 
Johnstons photographic collection. The archive 
reportedly included approximately thirty-six 
glass plate portraits of Pribilof Native families, 
one hundred ninety-two 5x7-inch glass plate 
negatives, and about five hundred nitrate film 
negatives of Pribilof plants. Johnston intended to 
insert the plant photographs in his three-volume 
manuscript of the islands’ botany. Apparently the 
text became dated and was deemed unworthy 
of publication, 20 while the family portraits went 
missing. 21 Very much to the surprise and delight 
of the authors, in February 2008 the missing 
negatives were found in a former Naval Air Field 
hangar at Sand Point in Seattle, Washington, by 
NOAA photo archivist Gina Rappaport. 22 The 
hangar is part of the NOAA Western Regional 
Center campus along the western shoreline of 



Superintendent Edward Clyde Johnston, 
St. Paul Island, circa 1942. (Fredericka 
Martin Photograph Coll., 91-223-16, 
Archives, Alaska and Polar Regions Coll., 
Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska 
Fairbanks.) 



Earl Johnston, son of Edward Johnston, 
at St. George Island, circa 1923. (Edward 
Clyde Johnston, neg. 2549, NOAA.) 


361 




















Pribilof Islands: The People 


Lake Washington. Gina Rappaport and the pres¬ 
ent authors were well along with the draft of 
Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Guide to the Photographs 
and Illustrations when Rappaport re-examined 
historical collections attributed to Dr. Victor 
Scheffer and noticed a wooden box among 
Scheffer’s collection with a return-address ship¬ 
ping label from G Dallas Hanna. She lifted the 
wooden cover to find the negatives, which includ¬ 
ed thirty-two portraits rather than thirty-six, 238 
5x7-inch glass-plate botanical negatives, and 455 
film negatives. Taken at St. George Island during 
December 1922, the exquisite portraits represent 
many of the families still residing on the islands 
in 2008. These portraits are presented in Pribilof 
Islands, Alaska: Genealogy and Census, 24 as well 
as in the aforementioned Guide to Photographs 
and Illustrations. 

Superintendent Johnston was in charge when the Pribilof Natives were evacuated 
during WWII after a Japanese attack at Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian chain. One assumes 
that Johnston wrote out of naivete and not duplicity in a letter to Mr. G. Donald Gibbins, 
vice president of the Fouke Fur Company: 

All our people—white and natives—are established at Funter Bay on the west side of the 
northern tip of Admiralty Island. It is about 50 miles from Juneau—20 minutes by airplane. 

The St. Paul section is quartered at an abandoned cannery on one side of the bay and the 
St. George section at an abandoned mine on the opposite side. It is about one mile straight 
across or two miles around the beach at the head of the bay. The locations are not bad and 
with some lumber for repairs and partitions in large bunkhouses (and many other things) 
some degree of comfort may be obtained. We were exceedingly lucky that the evacuation 
was not ordered in early winter as it takes considerable time to get 500 men, women 
and children comfortably settled for the winter. We are greatly indebted to the Forestry 
Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, as well as cannery and mine owners, for the fullest 
cooperation. Everyone has been willing to donate their services and equipment whenever 
possible. 25 

Johnston apparently did not recognize that one of the most infamous tragedies in 
Aleut history under United States rule was unfolding under his watch. The story remains 
vivid today for those who survived the ordeal in crowded, unheated, and unhealthy quar¬ 
ters. This story became the subject of several books, including Slaves of the Harvest: The 
Story of the Pribilof Aleuts 26 and When the Wind Was a River 27 It has also been vividly 
portrayed in several film documentaries, including Aleut Story , 28 The Aleutians: Cradle of 
the Storms 29 and People of the Seal . 30 



Edward. Clyde Johnston with box 
camera. (NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, 
Anchorage, RG 22-FWS-2677.) 23 


362 





Top: Wooden box containing hun¬ 
dreds of glass plate and nitrate 
film negatives taken by government 
Agent Edward C. Johnston during 
the 1920s on the Pribilof Islands. 
Former Pribilof Islands naturalist 
G Dallas Hanna sent the box in the 
1960s or earlier to Dr. Victor Scheffer. 
Hanna was Curator of Geology at 
the California Academy of Sciences 
and Scheffer was a marine mammal 
expert with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
Service, Bureau of Fisheries (a NOAA 
predecessor) at Sand Point in Seattle, 
Washington. The box was accidently 
discovered in a NOAA warehouse in 
Seattle, Washington in 2008. Bottom: 
Photographic negatives housed in 
paper envelopes and cardboard con¬ 
tainers in the wooden box. 


Dry Seed glass-plate negatives used by Edward 
Johnston at St. George Island to take photo¬ 
graphs of people and natural history subjects 
on the Pribilof Islands, during December 1922. 




Open only in photographic dark room 


SEED 


Dry Plates 




ini 

// /7fflTW N 


Manufactured by 


EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY 

Rochester, N. Y., U. S. A. 


Tr»4« *UrV« R««. U. ft. Pat. Off. 


^ ^replaced O fowtdto t* dafictlvaln manufacture, th«y art told without 
warranty of any kind, txprtasad or Implkd. 


363 




































Portraits taken by Edward C. Johnston at St. George Island, December 1922. Top left: Rev. Peter 
Kashevarof. Top right: Ermogen Lekanof. Bottom left: Mouza Merculief. Bottom right: Helena 
Philemonof. 


364 






















Examples of the more than 500 botanical specimens photographed by Edward C. Johnston on St. 

George and St. Paul islands during the 1920s. Top: Arnica unalaschoensis (NOAA, NMML Library, EJC 
2530.) Bottom: Eriophorum sp. in fruit. (NOAA, NMML Library, EJC 2533.) 


365 















The U.S. Army Transport Delarof, which evacuated the Pribilof Islands communities of St. Paul and St. 
George on June 15 and 16, 1942, respectively. (Alaska State Library, Evan Hill Photograph Coll., P343- 
468.) 



Dining room facilities used by St. Paul Island residents at Funter Bay Cannery Internment Camp, 
Admiralty Island, Alaska, early 1940s. (Fredericka Martin Photograph Coll., 91-223-281, Archives, 
Alaska and Polar Regions Coll., Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.) 


366 















Gold Mine Internment Camp occupied by St. George Island residents, Funter Bay, Admiralty Island, 
Alaska, early 1940s. (Fredericka Martin Photograph Coll., 91-223-347, Archives, Alaska and Polar 
Regions Coll., Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.) 



St. Paul Island children: Gregory Emanoff, Smile Gromoff, Karp Emanoff, and Nikander Merculieff 
swimming at Funter Bay Cannery Internment Camp, Admiralty Island, Alaska, early 1940s. 
(Fredericka Martin Photograph Coll., 91-223-304, Archives, Alaska and Polar Regions Coll., Rasmuson 
Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.) 


367 











Pribilof Islands: The People 



Antone Kochutin on boardwalk at the Funter 
Bay Cannery Internment Camp, Admiralty 
Island, Alaska, early 1940s. (Fredericka Martin 
Photograph Coll., 91-223-337, Archives, Alaska 
and Polar Regions Coll., Rasmuson Library, 
University of Alaska Fairbanks.) 



St. Paul Island resident Platonida Melovidov 
and children at Funter Bay Cannery Internment 
Camp, Admiralty Island, Alaska, early 1940s. 
(Fredericka Martin Photograph Coll., 91- 
223-294, Archives, Alaska and Polar Regions 
Coll., Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska 
Fairbanks.) 


Jones, Ernest Lester ( 1876 - 1929 ) 

Deputy Commissioner, U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, 1913-1915 
Head of the Alaska Investigation of 1914 
Director of Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1915 
Founder of the American Legion 

Genealogy 

Ernest Lester Jones was born on April 14, 1876, at East Orange, New Jersey, to Charles 
Hopkins Jones and Ida (Lester) Hopkins. Ernest was more commonly referred to as 
Lester. Shortly before graduating from college, on September 28, 1897, E. Lester Jones 
married Virginia Brent Fox of Louisville, Kentucky. E. Lester Jones died on April 9, 1929, 
leaving a wife and two daughters. 31 

Biographical Sketch 

Ernest Lester Jones was educated in New Jersey schools. He received a BA degree in 
1898 from Princeton University and became a veterinary surgeon. 32 He began his govern- 


368 







____ Biographies J ♦ Johnston - Jones 

ment service in 1913 as Deputy Commissioner 
of the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, a post he held 
for two years. He was appointed Superintendent 
(Director) of the Coast and Geodetic Survey 
in 1915, and remained in that position until 
his death in 1929. 33 On a leave of absence from 
this position, he served in the U.S. Signal Corps 
during World War I and rose in rank to Colonel, 

Division of Military Aeronautics, 1st Army Air 
Service. For his meritorious service, Jones was 
made an Officer of the Order of S.S. Maurizio 
and Lazzaro and Fatigue de Guerre by the King 
of Italy. His concern after the war for returning 
soldiers and their welfare, particularly for their 
ability to assimilate into the workforce, led him 
to organize the first American Legion Post—no. 

1, in Washington, D.C. 34 NOAA’s former Chief of 
the Coast and Geodetic Survey was described in 
a biographical sketch (excerpted): 

In addition to his duties as Director of the Coast 
and Geodetic Survey, Colonel Jones served as 
Commissioner of the Internal Boundary between 
the United States and Canada and Alaska and Canada, from February 1921 until his death. 

He was a member of the Aerial Patrol Commission of the United States. 35 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

In 1914, E. Lester Jones was in the midst of a general investigation into the status of 
Alaskan fisheries when on short notice he was dispatched to the Pribilof Islands to look 
into allegations of improprieties by some of the government’s employees there. He sum¬ 
marized his original intentions in Alaska: 

By direction of the Secretary of Commerce [Redfield], I was instructed to proceed to 
Alaska (1) in order to make a thorough survey and investigation of the various fishery 
industries, (2) to visit the fur-seal fisheries on the Pribilof Islands and make studies in 
connection therewith for the purpose of formulating a more definite and businesslike 
policy for the administration of those islands, and (3) to inquire into the status of the minor 
fur-bearing animals, including both the matter of the protection of the wild stock and the 
development of the industry of rearing such animals in captivity. 36 

Then he received orders to cut short his current investigations at Seward and “pro¬ 
ceed at once to those islands [Pribilofs] to investigate irregularities in regard to the con¬ 
duct of certain Government officials.” 37 He arrived at St. Paul Island on July 10, 1914, and 
subsequently telegraphed Secretary Redfield: 

I wired Commissioner [of Fisheries] yesterday recommending that immediate preparations 
be made for new agents on islands, as evidence so far positively warrants these charges. 

Would earnestly urge Navy Department to act in case of Wireless Operator McClenny, now 
on St. George’s Island, as charges against him are very serious. 38 



Ernest Lester Jones (left). (NOAA Photo 
Library, http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/ 
700s/theb2892.jpg, accessed Mar. 23, 
2009.) 


369 













Pribilof Islands: The People 


In his two weeks on the island, Jones did look into administrative matters including 
current conditions for the Natives and details of a study of fox herds on both islands. 
(He left the review of the sealing industry to other experts.) He introduced his published 
report with a restatement of the islands’ importance: 

There is probably no part of Alaska concerning which more interest is manifested than the 
Pribilof Islands, in Bering Sea. The fact that they are the breeding ground of the largest 
rookeries of fur seals in the world make them not only of great interest but a valuable asset 
to the United States Government. 39 

But he also dealt with the charges of gross misconduct by several—not all —gov¬ 
ernment officials on both inhabited islands (see Alvin Whitney biography for additional 
information). 

Among the charges that have been lodged against the principal Government agents on 
the Pribilof Islands are debauching the wives of natives, terrorizing their husbands into 
silence, drunkenness and furnishing intoxicants to the natives, creating a condition in the 
community that has resulted in death and lawlessness, and permitting the unlawful killing 
of fur seal pups. 40 

An investigation was made of charges against the agent and caretaker, and the storekeeper 
on St. Paul Island, and against the agent and caretaker on St. George Island. Nothing was 
left undone to bring about a fair and full hearing, and testimony of all the white employees 
on both islands, as well as of a large number of natives, was taken and the investigation was 
sweeping and impartial. It showed beyond a question of doubt that a deplorable condition 
has existed on these islands for years, and resulted in the dismissal from the service of both 
men on St. Paul Island. All Government officials who have allowed the morals of the islands 
to be disturbed have violated their oath of office and are guilty of gross misconduct if not of 
criminal negligence. 41 

Jones’ report was wide-ranging: the overall living conditions of the Natives; housing; 
Native beer, or quass; schools; Native wages, supplies, and rations; occupations; new of¬ 
fices and salaries for responsible government officials; physicians; hospital stewards; need 
for a temporary dentist; improvements required at the Government House and Company 
House; janitor service; distribution of seal meat; the possibility of cattle raising; roads for 
St. George Island; supply ship costs and the installation of aerial cable and lighters for 
unloading ships; and improvement of landing regulations. The report also included his 
separate personal addresses to the Natives of St. George Island, July 17,1914, and St. Paul 
Island, July 20, 1914. Jones concluded his report: 

The whole Pribilof Islands problem may be summarized thus: If moral, intellectual, and 
general conditions are to be improved; if the business of the islands is to be carried on 
along businesslike lines (and surely the proposition of these islands, including the fur-seal 
and fox herds, is largely commercial), then the situation must be viewed from an entirely 
different standpoint than hitherto; for the returns the Government is to receive from its 
investment warrant the expenditure of a sum of money large enough to give the officials of 
the Government and the natives civilized surroundings, and provide adequate means and 
necessary facilities to accomplish a proper administration of the affairs of these islands. 42 

Jones’ investigation led to the dismissal of several employees and court-martial of the 
Navy employee. Additional improvements to the islands were forthcoming. 


370 




Biographies J ♦ Jones - Jordan 


Jordan, David Starr (1851-1931) 

Ichthyologist, Naturalist, Educator 

President, Indiana University, 1885-1891, and Stanford University (then Leland 
Stanford Junior University), 1891-1913 
Commissioner in Charge of Fur-Seal Investigations of1896-1898 
Head of Bureau of Fishery Advisory Board, 1909 

Genealogy 

David Starr Jordan was born on January 19, 1851, 
at Gainesville, Wyoming County, New York, to 
Hiram Jordan (b. February 12, 1809) and Huldah 
Lake (Hawley) Jordan (b. July 9,1812 in Whitehall, 

New York). While a student at Cornell, David 
Jordan met his first wife, Susan Bowen (1845- 
1885), whom he married in 1875. David and 
Susan Jordan had three children: Edith, Harold, 
and Thora, before Susan died in 1885. With his 
second wife, Jessie Knight (m. 1887), David Jordan 
had three more children: Knight Starr, Barbara, 
and Eric Knight. David Starr Jordan died at Santa 
Clara, California, on September 19, 1931. 43 

Biographical Sketch 

David Starr Jordan was educated at his home¬ 
town school in Gainesville, New York. He was a 
devoted student of science, especially astrono¬ 
my and botany, and was offered a scholarship to 
Cornell University in 1869. After graduation from Cornell in 1872, he taught botany; his 
wife Susan was also a trained botanist. 

Jordan furthered his formal education with an MD from Indiana Medical College 
(1875) and a PhD. from Butler University (1878). He had been strongly influenced by 
Louis Agassiz after attending a summer school session taught by the renowned ichthyolo¬ 
gist in 1873. Jordan in turn became the leading American ichthyologist. He published 645 
works on fishes and 1,372 publications on a wide variety of other topics. In his cataloging 
of fishes from many parts of the world, he collected information on 7,800 species. Jordan’s 
publications were compiled in a bibliography by Alice N. Hays, published by Stanford 
University Press in 1952. 

Jordan was not only a student and teacher of science but also a leader in the educa¬ 
tional and political arenas. He was president of Indiana University (1885-1891), president 
of Leland Stanford Junior University (1891-1913), and Chancellor Emeritus of Stanford 
University (1913-1916). 



DAVID STARR JORDAN, AUGUST, 1868 

David Starr Jordan, August 1868. (David 
Starr Jordan, The Days of a Man.J 


371 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


While occupied with academic duties, Jordan found time to take part in many other 
scientific and educational activities, and even political discussions. From 1879 until 
1890, he was closely associated with the United States Fish Commission; in 1880, he was 
in charge of fishery investigations on the Pacific coast; and in 1896-1897, he was the 
American representative on the commission for studying the fur seals in the Bering Sea. He 
was always active in organizations for the abolition of war. His varied reminiscences were 
published in 1922 in two volumes entitled The Days of a Man.* 4 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

David Starr Jordan’s direct connection with the Pribilof Islands began in 1896, when 
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Charles Sumner Hamlin requested his assistance in 
a special investigation of the Seal Islands, known as the Fur-Seal Commission of 1896- 
1897, or as the Jordan Commission. Dr. Jordan agreed to head the commission; he chose 
several scientists from the U.S. National Museum and the U.S. Fish Commission’s steam¬ 
er Albatross to assist him, along with several dedicated students of science at Stanford 
University, his personal secretary, and an agent of the U.S. Treasury at the Pribilof Islands. 
The investigation was “an outgrowth of a belief on the part of the United States that the 
regulations formulated by the Paris Tribunal of Arbitration ‘for the protection and pres¬ 
ervation of the fur seal’ had failed to accomplish their avowed object.” 45 

Congress passed an act that outlined the organization of the Commission; 

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in 
Congress assembled, That the Secretary of the Treasury be, and is hereby, authorized to 
expend, from any moneys in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, a sum sufficient to 
provide for the employment of persons to conduct a scientific investigation, during the 
fiscal years eighteen hundred and ninety-six and eighteen hundred and ninety-seven, of the 
present condition of the fur-seal herds on the Pribilof, Commander, and Kuril islands in the 
North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea, said amount not to exceed for both said years the sum 
of five thousand dollars. 

The Secretary is also authorized to employ a stenographer in connection with this 
investigation at a rate of compensation not exceeding one thousand five hundred dollars 
per annum, and to pay his compensation and expenses out of any moneys in the Treasury 
not otherwise appropriated. 

The President is authorized to detail, for the purposes of assisting in this investigation, any 
officer or officers or employees of the United States Government, their actual expenses 
and the expenses of the person or persons employed under the preceding paragraph to 
be paid by the Secretary of the Treasury out of any moneys in the Treasury not otherwise 
appropriated. 

The President may detail a vessel of the United States for the purpose of carrying out this 
investigation. 46 


Members of the American Commission (1896-97): 47 
Dr. David Starr Jordan, Commissioner, President, Leland Stanford Junior University 
Lt. Commander Jefferson F. Moser, Commander, U.S. Fish Commission steamer Albatross 
Dr. Leonard Stejneger, Curator of reptiles, United States National Museum 
Frederic A. Lucas, Curator of comparative anatomy, U.S. National Museum 
Charles H. Townsend, Naturalist on the Albatross 
George Archibald Clark, Secretary of the Commission 
Secretary to President Jordan at Leland Stanford Junior University 


372 





Biographies J ♦ Jordan 


Colonel Joseph Murray, Special Assistant to the Commission, Assistant U.S. Treasury 
Agent, St. Paul Island 

Bristow Adams, Artist Assistant to the Commission, Student, Stanford University 
Norman Briscoe Miller, Photographer 1896, Assistant from steamer Albatross 
Harry Dennison Chichester, Photographer 1897, North American Commercial Company 
Agent 

Student assistants: A.W. Greeley, Trevor Kincaid, Edwards (no other name given), and 
Robert E. Snodgrass. 

British Members of the Commission (1896-97): 48 

D Arcy Wentworth Thompson, Professor of Zoology, University of Dundee 

James Melville Macoun, 49 Botanist, Canadian Museum and Geological Survey of Canada 

Gerald E. H. Barrett-Hamilton, Naturalist, Dublin, Ireland 

Andrew Halkett (not an official member of the commission), Special Investigator of the 
pelagic sealing fleet. 

Members of the commission were to report their findings to the Secretary of the 
Treasury. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Hamlin instructed Jordan: 

The principal object of this investigation is to determine by precise and detailed 
observations first, the present condition of the American fur-seal herd; second, the nature 
and imminence of the causes, if any, which appear to threaten its extermination; third, 
what, if any, benefits have been secured to the herd through the operation of the act of 
Congress and act of Parliament based upon the award by the Paris Tribunal of Arbitration; 
fourth, what, if any, additional protective measures on land or at sea, or changes in the 
present system of regulations as to the closed season, prohibited zone, prohibition of 
firearms, etc., are required to insure the preservation of the fur-seal herd. Your inquiries 
should furthermore be extended, in so far as the time and circumstances permit to embrace 
the consideration of all important questions relating to the natural history of the seal both 
at sea and on the islands, with special reference to their bearing upon the sealing industry. 50 

Added to the general instructions was a list of thirteen specific questions for which 
Congress sought answers, covering such topics as the effect of pelagic sealing, destruc¬ 
tion of nursing pups, mortality of seals on the islands, travel routes of the seal herd, seal 
breeding habits and food supplies, and whether the Alaskan fur seals were intermingling 
with the Asiatic herds—all this with a $5,000 budget. 

From the St. Paul Island Agent’s Log on September 8, 1896, at the close of the com¬ 
mission’s first season: 

Every one feels that the investigation carried out under Dr. Jordan’s efficient lead will be 
sure to result in some measures to be put in force toward doing away with pelagic sealing at 
least. He has certainly left no stone unturned. He has been ably served by every member of 
the Commission and they have all worked harmoniously together. 

The branded seal pups are reported to be doing first rate. Messer’s Macoun and Barrett- 
Hamilton have begun making a collection of fungi. 51 

At the end of the second season the commission summarized its findings, which were 
reported in the New York Times: 

The primary cause of shrinkage of females on the breeding ground is the pelagic catch of 
last Fall and this Spring. To this is added the loss due to starvation of orphaned pups in 
1894, which should this year have lived to give birth to their first pups. This starvation in 
1894 affecting, as it did, in a like measure the male herd, is the cause of the diminution of 
the killable seals on the hunting grounds. 


373 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


The decline of the herd is everywhere more distinctly marked than it was last year owing 
to the effects of the resumption of pelagic killing in Bering Sea after the modus vivendi of 
1893. For 1898 the shrinkage will be still greater. The evil effects of pelagic sealing in any 
particular year are still more clearly felt three and four years after. Even if pelagic sealing 
should be stopped at once, the decline of the herds must go on until after 1900. 

The pelagic fleet in Bering Sea numbers about 29 vessels, as against 68 last year. The report 
of the catches shows that they were unprofitable. No seizures have been made. The only 
new fact discovered this year has been that a parasitic worm infesting the sandy, rocky 
areas is the cause of a large part of the early mortality among pups which was ascribed in a 
general way last year to trampling. 

The early mortality as a whole shows a decrease relative to the decreased number of 
animals. The branding of young female seals which will be begun after Sept. 1, will be 
carried on by Col. Murray, chief agent on the islands, and Mr. F. F. Farmer, electrician. The 
skins of the branded cows returned this year to the islands show clearly the permanency 
of the mark, and its efficiency to render the skin un-salable without injury to the animal 
or to the herd. Branding has the same effect upon the fur seal herd that branding calves or 
shearing sheep on those animals. The idea that the seals might be driven away by branding 
is sheer nonsense. 

The salt lagoon on St. Paul Island has been fenced and the males too young to be killed this 
year will be herded there until the close of the pelagic sealing. 52 

At the close of the Fur-Seal Commission investigations in 1897, the United States, Canada, 
Britain, Russia, and Japan met in Washington, D.C., to discuss the findings. After much 
debate, an agreement was reached to reduce pelagic sealing. Excerpts from Jordan’s pre¬ 
sentation were published in the press: 

Within the past two years it has several times been proposed that we should settle the fur 
seal question once and for all by the slaughter of the entire herd on its breeding grounds. 

It is scarcely necessary to point out that this course of action would not accomplish the 
desired end. As the animals are never all present at one time on the islands, a remnant 
would be left, which in time would revive the herd, and with it the whole question. In the 
meantime every objection which has been urged against pelagic sealing would be justly 
chargeable against such a slaughter. The proposition is an abominable one, without a single 
redeeming feature. 

The fur seal is the noblest of all the mammals of the sea. From the naturalist’s point of view 
it is one of the most interesting forms of life on the earth. From the commercial view it is 
one of the most valuable. Unlike the buffalo, the elk, the stag, and like animals, it occupies 
territory that cannot be used for any other purpose. Where the former animals once 
roamed great cities have sprung up, but the haunts of the fur seal would be deserted for all 
time if their inhabitants were destroyed. 53 

The Fur-Seal Commission published three volumes of their report (Parts 1, 2, and 
4) in 1898, and a fourth volume (Part 3) in 1899 (David Starr Jordan, editor, The Fur 
Seals and Fur-Seal Islands of the North Pacific Ocean, U.S. Dept of the Treasury, Doc. 
2017, Washington, DC: GPO). Part 1 concerned the history of the problem and the main 
phases of the controversy. Part 2 contained the detailed journal of daily observations and 
abstracts from the St. Paul Agents’ Log of twenty years, as it pertained to seal habits. Part 
3 addressed detailed scientific and special reports, with the findings of national science 
experts. Part 4 included the reports of Leonhard Stejneger respecting his investigation 
on Commander and Kuril Islands (the Russian fur-seal islands). The total cost to the U.S. 
Treasury for the 1896-1899 Commission was $45,000. 


374 




Biographies J ♦ Jordan 


On January 1, 1909, twelve years after the Fur-Seal Commission of 1897, and as the 
North American Commercial Company’s twenty-year lease to harvest fur seals on the 
Pribilof Islands was approaching its end, management of the Alaskan Fur-Seal Service 
was placed under the auspices of the Bureau of Fisheries. 54 Secretary of Commerce and 
Labor, Oscar S. Straus, asked the following experts to be part of an Advisory Board of the 
Fur-Seal Service: 

Fur-Seal Board 

David Starr Jordan, Chairman 
Leonard Stejneger 
Frederic A. Lucas 
Edwin A. Sims 
Charles H. Townsend 

Commission of Fisheries 

Barton W. Evermann, Chair 
Walter I. Lembkey 
Millard C. Marsh 

George M. Bowers, Commissioner of Fisheries 
Hugh M. Smith, Deputy Commissioner of Fisheries 
Harry D. Chichester, Assistant Fur Seal Agent 
George A. Clark, Special Scientific Expert 

Dr. Jordan’s leadership of scientific investigations in the Seal Islands was a key factor 
in influencing the attitude of the governments of the United States and other nations 
toward conservation management. 

The government assumed all administrative and management responsibility for the 
fur-seal industry in the Pribilofs, effective May 1, 1910, and with it forever ended the leas¬ 
ing program. In the fall of that year, the first full-time naturalist, Dr. Walter Hahn, began 
work on the islands. This and other major changes in administration and management of 
the fur-seal industry were soon followed by the Fur-Seal Treaty of 1911, hailed as the first 
international wildlife conservation treaty. With an act of Congress it put an end to com¬ 
mercial sealing for five years and prohibited the importing of sealskins by the signatory 
nations—thus effectively putting an end to pelagic sealing. 55 

In an interview with author Barrett Willoughby, former Pribilof Islands Agent Watson 
Colt Allis said, “I remember a day when Dr. David Starr Jordan unexpectedly met an ‘idle’ 
bull in the grass at the top of a cliff. The beast lunged at him. Both rolled together to the 
bottom. The doctor managed to escape with only a sprained ankle. It was while he was 
confined to the house afterward that he wrote his famous seal classic Matka” 56 Matka 
and Kotik became an extremely popular children’s story, published in several editions. 


375 







JOINT BRITISH-AMERICAN COMMISSION FOR FUR-SEAL INVESTIGATION, 

UNALASKA, I 896 

From left to right: Jordan, Clark, Murray, Moser, Lucas, Townsend, Thompson, Macoun, Stejneger 


Joint British-American Commission for Fur-Seal Investigation, Unalaska, 1896. (David Starr Jordan, 
The Days of A Man, 1922.) 



JOINT BRITISH-AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC COMMISSION, 1897-98 
From left to right: Venning, Foster, Thompson, Laurier, Hamlin, Jordan, Davies, Macoun, Adam, Clark 


Joint Diplomatic Commission 1898, Washington, D.C. Standing, fourth from left, is David Starr Jordan. 
(David Starr Jordan, The Days of A Man, 1922.) 


376 






Biographies J ♦ Jordan - Judge 


Judge, James (1867-1919) 

Assistant Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Pribilof Islands, 1894-1898 
Agent, U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Pribilof Islands, 1898-1903 
Agent, Pribilof Islands, 1903-1913 

Genealogy 

James Judge was born July 22, 1867, at Columbus, Franklin County, Ohio, to Irish immi¬ 
grants John and Bridget (Higgins) Judge. 5 James had one brother, Frank J., and six sisters: 
Mary, Margaret, Catherine, Bettie, Lida, and Annie, all of whom were born and lived in 
Columbus. James Judge married Helen Sultzer (born August 1870 in Ohio) on May 12, 
1894, in Cook County, Illinois. 58 James Judge died at Columbus, Ohio, on September 13, 
1919, and was interred at Mt. Calvary Cemetery in Columbus. 59 

Biographical Sketch 

James Judge was educated in public schools and graduated from a business college. He 
worked as a clerk and retail grocer before entering government service. The 1904 person¬ 
nel vita on James Judge noted that he was qualified as a lawyer. 60 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

James Judge and his new bride arrived at St. Paul Island on June 6, 1894. He was sworn in 
by Agent Joseph B. Crowley as a special agent of the Treasury on July 1,1894, and assigned 
duty as agent-in-charge of the seal-killing program. He was made special agent-in-charge 
from August 29, 1894, until the return of Agent Crowley on June 10, 1895. James and 
Helen Judge remained on St. Paul Island until September 14,1895, when they departed on 
the revenue cutter Corwin for San Francisco. The Judges returned to the Pribilof Islands 
on June 15, 1896. James served as assistant agent on St. George Island until July 1, 1898. 
Then he was assigned to St. Paul Island from August 21, 1898, until August 11, 1899, first 
as assistant agent appointed from Ohio's 12th Congressional District of Franklin, then as 
agent following the death of Agent Joseph Murray in August 1898. (Judge assumed the 
duties as agent before his position as assistant agent was officially terminated on October 
31, 1898.) As to his duties: “the agent has charge of matters pertaining to the fur-seal 
fisheries of Alaska, including relations with lessees of the seal islands and the natives, 
guarding the seal herds, custody of buildings and Government property.” 61 Judge served 
on St. Paul Island, with short intervals of leave, until 1912. 

James and Helen Judge both actively sought to assist the St. Paul Island Native com¬ 
munity, particularly during a deadly epidemic of measles in 1900. 62 James helped with 
capital improvements on St. Paul Island: a Native carpentry shop, blacksmith shop, 
gun house, movie theater behind the Native carpentry shop, and a telephone line from 
Zapadni Rookery to beyond Middle (Polovina) Hill. The Judges were also instrumental in 
the growth and development of the island’s Native culture—and some imported culture 
as well: 


377 







Pribilof Islands: The People 



Boys’ baseball team, St. Paul Island, 
Photograph Coll., P390-38.) 


1921. (Alaska State Library, Richard and Mary Culbertson 


Dr Rose and I attempted to teach the natives baseball this afternoon and while we had 
consideiable fun it was not much of a game. Some of the men had seen the game at 

Unalaska, but to the great majority it was their first experience. All seemed to enjoy it, and 
carried on a game on their own account after supper. 63 


“' e !!‘° n °f the ,udgeS ’ pa P ers is “"served at the Oregon Historical Society 
( ss-230). The collection also contains numerous interesting letters from Agent Joseph 
Murray, but a dozen or so photographs donated to the Society by the Judges' daughter 
were separated from the collection and may be missing. 6 * Pocketbook diaries by James 
an Helen Judge are in the Society’s holdings as well. Entries in one of James’ diaries of- 
eied some historical anecdotes of the Russian period: 


July 28, 1899 - Chat with older natives of St. George Island. 

Those present Eoff Philemonoff, Alexia Oustigoff, Eustin Swetzoff, Simeon Philemonoff 
and Pelm Prokopeof & first chief with Nicoli Merculieff for interpreter [sic], 

fan THoH d hT SUPP °r S u d *° be ° Ver 100 years when hediei He *** NicolisGrandafant 
p - I' He dled the >’ ear following American occupation. When he first came from 

ascend theT" 8 Tr °" arriVa ' they were obii 8 ed u* a ladder and 
end the cliff Sea lions and fur seals being so thick around the landing that they could 

not ge through them. A great many sea otter were in the cave east of the village. The cave 

at the time was much bigger than at present. The men used to walk all around inside the 

e and needed a lantern to see. They went just to look around. Sea otter used to have 

heir young there. Sea otter have no regular breeding season. Sea otter were never known 

e up on t e ground [land]. At that time there were lots of walrus at S E Point—the 

narrow bay between Sea Lion Point and Tolstoi point was called amagatha togomulga- 


378 













































Biographies J ♦ Judge - Notes 


walrus bay. Walrus are polygamous and came there to breed. EofF remembers seeing them 
there. They were exterminated by being killed on the rookery. The Russians did the killing 
to get the ivory and skins. The natives are of the opinion that other walrus would have 
come had the Russian taken the carcasses from the rookery. 

At the time sea lions extended from Sea Lion Point considerably beyond Garden Cove. 

They estimated way inland. A story is told of some men in a barabara when some sea lions 
crawled over the roof and it gave way precipitating the animals down upon the men. In 
the struggle that ensued one of the men had his leg bitten off by a sea lion. He died from 
the effects of the wound. Another, at another time, man lost his life by a sea lion [illegible] 
on him while they making the ... [drive?]. Both those men were at work on the sea lion 
skins. There were two barabaras. At that time there were two villages on the island—one 
at Zapadni. The other at Staraya Artel. The men worked Garden Cove every spring and 
summer to take sea lion skins. 

Sea lions hauled out at two places on Zapadni. These were shot on the rookeries by the 
Russian officers. They did it to get the [illegible] sinew, etc. rather than the skins. The 
largest rookery began 2 Vi miles west of the watch house and extended around such 
[illegible] point about Vi mile. The other rookery began at rock just south of present 
breeding ground of seals and extended about Vi mile. The carcasses were left on the rookery 
and natives think that the reason that other sea lions never came there afterwards.... Sea 
lions were killed just south of where the village now stands. At that time seals were not 
driven from East rookery at all. They began to drive East Rookery when the village was first 
erected where it now stands. When it was determined to build the present village, fires 
were built in the vicinity of the seals & sea lions to drive them away. It was necessary to 
keep the fires going for a long time, and day and night before the animals all left. All those 
old men were born on the present village site in community houses. There was only one of 
those houses and every family in the village lived under that roof. The agent had a house for 
himself. One family would have 5# of flour every month, l 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A# of tea. Sugar about 1 lb.... 

The agent used to make the quass and deal it out. The young men got none. There was 
plenty to drink at the dances. Two kinds of dances—native - Russian. The natives made 
their own music. 


1 Rossiter Johnson and John Howard Brown, eds., The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of 
Notable Americans: Brief Biographies of Authors, Administrators, Clergymen, Commanders, Editors, 
Engineers, Jurists, Merchants, Officials, Philanthropists, Scientists, Statesmen and Others Who 

Are Making American History, vol. 6 (Boston: The Biographical Society, 1904), 190; and “Sheldon 
Jackson (1834-1909) Papers, 1855-1909, Finding Aid to Record Group 239,” Presbyterian Historical 
Society, Philadelphia, PA, http://history.pcusa.gor/finding/phs%20239.xml (accessed Nov. 9, 2009). 

2 “Sheldon Jackson Papers,” Presbyterian Historical Society. 

3 Sheldon Jackson, Report on Introduction of Domestic Reindeer into Alaska, U.S. Congress, Senate, 
54th Cong., 1st sess., S. Doc. no. Ill (Washington, DC: GPO, 1896), 9-10. 

4 Ibid., 11-3. 

5 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1892, 470. 

6 Waldemar Jochelson, History, Ethnology and Anthropology of the Aleut (Salt Lake City: University 
of Utah Press, 2002), viii; and Waldemar Jochelson, Unangam Ungiikangin Kayux Tunusangin = 
Unangam Uniikangis Ama Tunuzangis = Aleut Tales and Narratives, Collected in 1909-1910, eds. 
Knut Bergsland and Moses L. Dirks (Fairbanks: Univ. of Alaska, Alaska Native Language Center, 
1990), 7. 

7 Jochelson, Aleut Tales and Narratives, 8. 

8 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, notes by Walter I. Lembkey, July 16, 1910, 91. 

9 In 1909, Jochelson recorded the voice of Isidor Solovyov, the Tanax-Amix storyteller, on phono¬ 
graphic wax cylinders. Jochelson penned the story in Aleut, Russian and English with the assistance 
of Russian Orthodox Church reader Leontiy Ivanovich Sivtsov. Solovyov’s intonations or lack 


379 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


thereof were acknowledged in the body text through a process that imbedded numbers in the lines 
of the text. Bergsland and Dirks describe Jochelson’s procedures in Aleut Tales and Narratives, page 
34. For example, “A numbered line represents a stretch without an intonational break. There may be 
an internal pause possibly due to a hesitation or change of mind.” Superscript letters within the body 
of the translation denote Jochelson’s footnotes. Note that within the context of the story, those items 
between brackets are the comments of editors Bergsland and Dirks, not the present authors. 

10 See Ronald J. Mason, “Archaeology and Native North American Oral Traditions,” American 
Antiquity 65, no. 2 (Apr. 2000): 239-66; Bruce Ballenger, “Methods of Memory: On Native American 
Storytelling,” College English 59, no. 7 (Nov. 1997): 789-800; and Alan Dundes, “The American 
Concepts of Folklore,” Journal of the Folklore Institute 3, no. 3 (Dec. 1966): 226-49. 

11 U.S. Federal Census, 1920, Ancestry.com, (accessed Feb. 5, 2007). 

12 WWI registration information, San Diego, CA, Ancestry.com; “Death Takes Edward C. Johnston, 

63,” Seattle Times, Apr. 10, 1951, 21; and U.S. Federal Censuses, 1900 and 1930, Ancestry.com. 

13 St. George Island Agent’s Log, July 28, 1920. 

14 Donald P. Frechin, “The Lepidopterists’ News',’ Journal of the Lepidopterists’ Society 5, nos. 6-7, 66. 

15 Washington State Death Index, 1940-96. 

16 “Mrs. Edward C. Johnston,” Seattle Times, Mar. 11, 1966, 45; and “E. Jeannette Johnston, U.S. Agent’s 
Widow,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Mar. 11, 1966, 28. 

17 WWI registration information, San Diego, CA, Ancestry.com; and U.S. Census, 1930. 

18 Frechin, “The Lepidopterists’ News,” 66. 

19 Ibid.; Edward Johnston, “The Lepidoptera of the Pribilof Islands,” The Lepidopterists’ News 4 (3): 
27-30; and see Eugene Munroe, 1950, “The Occurrence of a Butterfly in the Pribilof Islands,” The 
Lepidopterists’ News 4 (4-5): 44 about the enigmatic occurance of a butterfly species on the Pribilof 
Islands. 

20 Letter from C. Howard Baltzo to Laboratory and Program Directors at the Sand Point Naval Air 
Station, Seattle, WA, Oct. 27, 1960, obtained by John Lindsay from the St. Paul Island Tribal Council 
collection, St. Paul Island, AI<. 

21 In an email message from Archivist Karren Elsbernd, California Academy of Sciences, to junior 
author John Lindsay, on Jan. 25, 2007, the Johnston collection holds 580 mounted photographs, 
primarily plants and some habitat scenes, but nothing else. 

22 Ms. Rappaport was a contractor to NOAA/NOS/ORR with the firm Booz Allen Hamilton. 

23 The Edward C. Johnston image was taken on July 16, 1948 by Victor B. Scheffer. Scheffer’s photo ar¬ 
chives are held by the NMML Library in Seattle, WA. Scheffer cataloged this image as negative 2407. 
Apparently 2407 was transferred to NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage and placed within RG 
22, and cataloged as FWS 2677. Negative 2677 may have been misplaced, but a copy negative now 
resides with the NMML Library. 

24 Betty A. Lindsay and John A. Lindsay, Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Genealogy and Census, NOAA Tech. 
Memo NOS ORR 18 (2009). 

25 Letter from Edward C. Johnston to Mr. G. Donald Gibbins, July 21, 1942, in John C. Kirtland and 
David Coffin Jr., The Relocation and Internment of the Aleuts During World War II (Anchorage, AI<: 
Aleutian/Pribilof Islands Association, 1981), vol. 1, The Military Situation, 93-4. 

26 Barbara Torrey, Slaves of the Harvest: The Story of the Pribilof Aleuts (St. Paul Island, AI<: 

Tanadgusix, 1978). 

27 Dean Kohlhoffi When the Wind Was a River (Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 1995). 

28 Marla Williams, producer and writer of Aleut Story (DVD; Anchorage, AI<: SprocketHeads, 2005), 
executive producer, Carolyn K. Robinson. 

29 Michael Single, producer and Beth Harrington, producer and writer of The Aleutian Islands: Cradle 
of the Storms (DVD; Natural History New Zealand Ltd., 2001, and Oregon Public Broadcasting, 

2002 ) 120 minutes. 

30 John A. Lindsay (NOAA), producer, and Kate Raisz (42 Degrees N Films), director of the NOAA 
documentary People of the Seal (DVD; Seattle, WA: NOAA, 2009) 71 minutes. 

31 “NOAA History, A Science Odyssey: Profiles in Time—C&GS Biographies,” Colonel E. Lester Jones, 
http://www.history.noaa.gov/cgsbios/bioj7.html (accessed Mar. 18, 2009). 

32 Donald J. Orth, Dictionary of Alaska Place Names, Geological Survey Paper 567 (Washington, DC: 
GPO, 1967), 16. 

33 Ibid. 


380 




Biographies J ♦ Notes 


34 “NOAA History, A Science Odyssey: Profiles in Time-C&GS Biographies,” Colonel E. Lester Jones, 
http://www.history.noaa.gov/cgsbios/bioj7.html (accessed Mar. 18, 2009). 

35 Ibid. 

36 Ernest Lester Jones, Report of Alaska Investigations in 1914 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1915), 124. 

3/ Ibid.; also see biography of Alvin Whitney, who with his wife made the allegations against the gov¬ 
ernment employees. 

38 “Arrest Five Agents in Alaska Scandal,” New York Times, July 20, 1914, 1. 

39 Jones, Report of Alaska Investigations, 124. 

40 “Arrest Five Agents in Alaska Scandal,” New York Times, July 20, 1914, 1. 

41 Jones, Report of Alaska Investigations, 126. This report described the deplorable conditions on the 
Pribilof Islands in 1914, and made recommendations to improve those conditions. However, the au¬ 
thors could not locate any official documents leading up to this report, including the diary submit¬ 
ted by teachers Mr. and Mrs. Alvin G. Whitney to Secretary of Commerce Redfield, which offered 
detailed allegations leading to Jones’ investigation. Also not located were the records Jones alluded 
to in his 1915 report (page 126). Island agent records from July 5, 1914, to Sept. 1916 are also absent 
in the NARA collection. 

42 Jones, Report of Alaska Investigations, 124-45. Following Jones’ investigation many positive im¬ 
provements took place on both islands, although they were not all-encompassing. 

43 David Starr Jordan, The Days of a Man (Yonkers-on-Hudson, NY: World Book, 1922), vol. 1, 1-10; 
Frank R. Perry, David Starr Jordan,’’ http://www.calcentral.eom/-fossils/peopled.html#jordan (ac¬ 
cessed Dec. 12, 2005). 

44 David Starr Jordan, http://faculty.evansville.edu/ck6/bstud/jordan.html (accessed February 1, 2006); 
“David Starr Jordan,” Ancestry World Tree at Ancestry.com: Lareau Family Master File, (accessed 
Nov. 7, 2005); and Anon., “Obituary, David Starr Jordan,” Science, 74 (Oct. 2, 1931): 327-9. 

45 David Starr Jordan, ed., The Fur Seals and Fur-Seal Islands of the North Pacific Ocean (Washington, 
DC: GPO, 1898), pt. 1, 17. 

46 Ibid., 17. 

47 Ibid., 17-8. 

48 Ibid., 18. 

49 Jordan, The Days of A Man, vol. 1, 553, described Macoun as a botanist with the Canadian Museum 
and Jordan, ed., The Fur Seals, 18, simply characterized Macoun as a member of the Geological 
Survey of Canada. 

50 Jordan, ed., The Fur Seals, 18. 

51 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1896, 45. 

52 “Evil of Pelagic Sealing,” New York Times, Aug. 23, 1897, 2. 

53 "Washington, Dec. 13, 1897, Fur Seal Legislation,” New York Times, Dec. 14, 1897, 3. 

54 Responsibility for fur seals was transferred to the Bureau of Fisheries by a Secretary of Commerce 
and Labor order of Dec. 28, 1908, although initiation didn’t occur until Jan. 1, 1909. NARA, 

Research Room Guide to Records of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, RG 22.1 & RG 22.2, 3-4. 

55 U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, David Starr Jordan, SIA, RU 7176, box 4, folder 4; U.S. Senate, 
Resolution 90, 91, 92 (Dec 7, 1909); Senate Bill S. 7242 (Mar. 17, 1910); and Witness Henry W. Elliott 
in U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Commerce, 69th Cong., 1st sess., Hearing June 10, 1926 
(Washington, DC: GPO, 1926), 4-84. Since the treaty became effective in Dec. of 1912, and the 
government officials involved with the Pribilofs were aware of the pending moratorium as they went 
into the 1912 sealing year, officials decided to cancel the seal harvest for 1912—effectively the mora¬ 
torium lasted for six years rather than five as commonly stated in various documents. 

56 Barrett Willoughby, Alaska Holiday (Boston: Little, Brown, 1940), 217. David Starr Jordan originally 
published his seal tale as Matka and Kotik: A Tale of the Mist Islands (San Francisco: Whitaker and 
Ray, 1897). The story became so popular it was republished under the title The Story of Matka: A 
Tale of the Mist Islands (Yonkers-on-Hudson, NY: World Book, 1927). Briton Cooper Busch, The 
War Against the Seals (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Univ. Press, 1985), 154 and 293 n73, commented 
that Jordan’s story was reprinted in 1910 and 1921. 

57 State of Ohio, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Certificate of Death, Franklin County, file no. 52819. The 
death certificate gives James Judge’s birth year as 1867 instead of 1866 as offered by the Oregon 
Historical Society in “Guide to James Judge Papers 1894-1907;” the 1880 U.S. Census gave James’ 
age as 13. 


381 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


58 Genealogical information from U.S. Census, 1900, 1910, and 1920; and Ohio Marriage Directory, 
Ancestry.com. 

59 U.S. Congress, House, House Resolution No. 73, To Investigate The Fur-Seal Industry of Alaska, 62nd 
Cong., 1st sess., Hearing no. 2 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1911), 137-8; U.S. Census, John Judge, for 
1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, Columbus, Franklin County, OH; Illinois State Marriage Index, 1763-1900, 
License no. 217690, Cook County; and State of Ohio Bureau of Vital Statistics, Certificate of Death, 
Franklin County, file no. 52819. 

60 U.S. Congress, House, House Resolution No. 73, 62nd Cong., 1st sess., Hearing no. 2, 137-8, and 926; 
and U.S. Census, 1880. 

61 Ibid., 137-8. 

62 Lindsay and Lindsay, Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Genealogy and Census, 42. 

63 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, May 19, 1901, 83. 

64 The authors visited the Oregon Historical Society (OHS) on Apr. 5 and 6, 2007. Busch, The War 
Against the Seals, 136 and 290 n36, commented that the James Judge papers MSS 230 at OHS con¬ 
tained two photographs of Gatling guns and cannons. The authors were unable to locate any of the 
Judge collection photographs, even with the high interest and assistance of the OHS staff. 



r 



Jl f 1 

l ' 1 





1 n 


r 1 


St. Paul Island High School class trip in 1960, leaving on a Reeve Aleutian airplane. (NARA, Pacific 
Alaska Region, Anchorage, RG 22-95-ADMC-2777) 


382 





Kashevaroff, Phillip 

Pelagic Sealer 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Phillip Kashevaroff was not a Pribilovian, although he very likely had relatives residing in 
the Pribilof Islands. But because his deposition for the Fur-Seal Tribunal of Arbitration 
presented an illuminating perspective from a pelagic sealer, it is transcribed, in part, 
below. Kashevaroff deposed before Treasury Agent Albert W. Lavender on April 11,1892. 
Phillip Kashevaroff stated: 

Am 47 years old; born at and reside in Sitka. Am by occupation a mariner. The last year I 
spent hunting seal on the schooner Allie Alger. First seal were seen olf Sitka Sound in May 
by me. We followed the seals as far as Sand Point on Unger [sic: Unga] Island. The shotgun 
was used altogether for taking seal. About three seal are secured out of every ten shot. The 
majority of seal are cows with pup. Everything is killed that comes near the boat. I think 
the seal are about as plentiful along this coast, but much more scarce farther west. The 
cause of this scarcity is too much pelagic hunting. Last year I was not in Bering Sea, but 
was on the Russian side. Have taken cows seals full of milk 30 miles from Copper Islands. 

Did not see any big bulls on Attu Islands. I think if sealing in Bering Sea was stopped and 
the indiscriminate killing of cows was stopped, seal would again become plentiful along the 
coast. When I was with the Russian Company, I spent six years looking for rookeries, but 
was unable to find any place where the fur seal hauled out elsewhere than on the Pribilof 
Islands. 1 


383 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


Keyes, Mark C. ( 1928-1984) 

Veterinarian Bureau of Commercial Fisheries and National Marine Fisheries Service, 
Pribilof Islands, 1962-1974 

Genealogy 

Mark Keyes was born on October 3, 1928, at Cambridge, New York. When Mark Keyes 
died on July 14, 1984, he was survived by his wife, Valerie, and sons Steward, Kenneth, 
Nathan, and Forrest. 2 

Biographical Sketch 

Mark Keyes was a student at Pacific Lutheran College, Tacoma, Washington, from 
1946 to 1948. He graduated in 1950 with a degree in zoology from the University of 
Washington in Seattle. He became proficient in the Korean language at the U.S. Army 
Language School and served as a language specialist with the U.S. Air Force during and 
following the Korean War, from 1951 to 1955. After the war, Keyes entered Washington 
State University’s pre-veterinary program and received his DVM in 1959. He worked at 
Evans Veterinary Hospital in Kennewick, Washington, for three years before his govern¬ 
ment appointment to the Pribilof Islands in 1962. 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Mark Keyes “was the first fulltime veterinarian hired by the forerunner agency [Bureau of 
Commercial Fisheries] of the National Marine Fisheries Service. As such, he directed and 
conducted research at the Seattle Aquarium, and on the Pribilof Islands regarding aspects 
of northern fur-seal biology, particularly in the fields of animal diseases and nutrition.” 3 


Kimmel, Louis (b. 1828) 

Physician, Assistant Treasury Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. George Island, 
1882-1883 

Genealogy 

Louis Kimmel was born at Raedgon, Grand Duchy, Hesse Darmstadt, Germany, on April 
21, 1828. He emigrated from Bremen, Germany, to the United States in April 1854, and 
became a naturalized U.S. citizen at Lafayette, Indiana, on June 15, 1859. 4 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Louis Kimmel provided the Tribunal of Arbitration with interesting information about 
the mortality of fur seals ancillary to the harvest at the Pribilof Islands. Such information 
was used by the Tribunal in making its decisions about the impacts of pelagic sealing and 
land harvests on the fur-seal population. Kimmel deposed before Notary Public Svellon 
A. Brown at Washington, D.C., on March 25, 1892: 


384 








Biographies I< ♦ Keyes - Kochutin 


I am a resident of La Fayette, Indiana, and am 63 years of age. During the years 1882 and 
1883 was the assistant Treasury Agent located on St. George Island of the Pribilof Group. I 
arrived on the island May 31, 1882, and remained there continuously until the later part of 
July, 1883. 

After every "drive” that took place while I was on the island I went back over the ground 
along which the seals had been driven to see if any seals had been killed by overdriving. 
The entire number of seals killed in all these “drives” did not exceed one hundred, and the 
majority of them were killed by the large seals crushing the smaller ones to death. In every 
case of a seal being killed on the “drive,” I, as Government agent, imposed a fine in order 
that they might be more careful in the future. 5 


Kochergin, Peter (b. 1902 ) 

Leader of the Aleut Civil Rights Movement, St. Paul Island 
Genealogy 

Peter Tetoff Kochergin was born March 2, 1902, to parents Daria Antonoff Tetoff (b. 
November 30, 1880, St. George Island) 6 and Zachar Tetoff (b. May 21, 1879, St. Paul 
Island) on St. Paul Island. 8 Peter’s siblings to Daria and Zachary Tetoff included: Paul (b. 
June 5, 1905), Venedict (b. March 27, 1907; Fedosia (b. June 11, 1913); Tatiana (b. January 
25, 1916); and Ifrosenia (b. October 6, 1917). 9 Peter was adopted by Gregory and Agafia 
Kochergin. 10 Peter Tetoff Kochergin married Helen S. Bourdukofsky, born May 14, 1905 
(the adopted daughter of Peter and Alexandra Bourdukofsky) on May 22, 1921, at St. Paul 
Island. 11 Peter and Helen Kochergin had four children born at St. Paul Island: Victor born 
September 26, 1923; Haretina born October 16, 1925; Moran born August 28, 1928; and 
Peter born July 11, 1931 (d. March 9, 2002). 12 

Biographical Sketch 

Peter Kochergin attended Chemawa Indian Training School in Oregon during the early 
1900s. 13 Peter Kochergin was one of the acknowledged leaders during efforts to acquire 
Pribilovian civil rights during the 1940s and 1950s. He was revered for his knowledge, 
intelligence, and leadership abilities. He is portrayed along with four of his comrades in a 
painting which hangs in the St. Paul Island city council chambers. 14 


Kochutin (Kotchooten), Jacob ( 1851 - 1931 ) 

Aleut Sealer, St. Paul Island 
Genealogy 

Jacob Kochutin was born May 12, 1851, on St. Paul Island. Jacob Kochutin married 
Alexandra (surname unknown) born May 5, 1863, at Unalaska. Jacob and Alexandra 
Kochutin had two sons: Theodore (b. March 1, 1888), and Larion (b. March 8, 1893), St. 
Paul Island. 15 Theodore Kochutin married Mary Sedick (b. July 1, 1883, St. Paul Island) 16 
November 27,1905, on St. Paul Island. 17 Jacob Kochutin died on St. Paul on June 5,1931. 18 


385 







Pribilof Islands: The People 



Jacob Kotchooten provided the following histori¬ 
cal information about changes in the seal harvest 
process as part of his deposition for the Tribunal 
of Arbitration. Kotchooten deposed before 
Treasury Agent-in-Charge William H. Williams 
at St. Paul Island, Alaska, on June 8, 1892: 


Jacob Kochutin, St. Paul Island, 

1930. (NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, 
Anchorage, RG 22, Administrative 
Correspondence, ca. 1888-1987.) 


Alexandra Kochutin died April 15, 1947, on St. 
Paul Island, Alaska. 19 Agent Daniel C. R. Benson 
wrote in the log, “Alexandra Kochutin passed 
away at 7:00 am. She was the island’s oldest resi¬ 
dent and would have been 84 next month.” 20 


Biographical Sketch 

Jacob Kochutin spent his life as a sealer. 
Government Agent Harry Peterson wrote about 
Kotchooten in his St. Paul Island Agent’s Log: 

Jacob Kochutin, age 80 years, died at 4:30 p.m. 
today of Myocarditis. He is survived by his wife, 

Alexandra, and son, Theodore. Jacob was the oldest 
native on the island and is honorably remembered 
for his long and faithful service here. He had the 
reputation of being the fastest and most efficient 
seal skinner and it is probable that he has skinned 
more of these animals than any sealer since 1867. 21 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 


I am a native of St. Paul Island, Alaska, and I am 40 years of age. I am a native sealer, and 
have worked among seals on St. Paul Island all my life, and I remember when I was first 
rated a man, some twenty-three years ago; it was when Kerrick Buterin was chief, and he 
used to follow us up when we went to drive seals, and tell us to walk along as slow as we 
could, so as not to tire the seals or worry them in any way. 

In 1879 the Alaska Commercial Company built a salt house about 2 miles from Halfway 
Point, and after that the seals were never driven more than 2 miles. 

Ten or twelve years ago the rookeries and sea were full of seals, but now there is not a 
great many; we used to kill 85,000 in less than two month’s time on St. Paul Island, and our 
people earned plenty of money to buy everything they wanted, and in the winter we killed 
2,000 to 3,000 male pups for food and clothing. Now we are not allowed to kill any more 
pups, and only 7,500 male seals for food, and our people are very much worried to know 
what is to become of themselves and children. 22 


386 






Biographies I< ♦ Kochutin - Kushin 


Krukoff, Nicoli (b. 1849 ) 

Aleut Sealer, St. Paul Island 

Second Chief, St. Paul Island, 1891-1892+(?) 

Genealogy 

Nicoli Krukoff was born at sea near Sitka, Alaska in 1849. 23 Nicoli married Catherine 
(surname unknown), born August 30, 1858, at Atka . 24 Nicoli and Catherine had two chil¬ 
dren, Metrofan (b. June 4, 1883) 25 and Oustenia (Eustina) b. October 15, 1889. 26 Both 
children were born at St. Paul Island. Metrofan Krukoff married Pelagia Philammiff, born 
October 19, 1887, at St. George Island . 2 Metrofan and Pelagia had a son, Metrofay, born 
August 22, 1909, at St. Paul Island. 2S Nicoli Krukoff died July 13, 1910 of uremia . 29 Eustina 
Krukoff died October 15, 1910, of “Ludwig’s Angina” and “Septisemia .” 30 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

In his deposition for the Tribunal of Arbitration, Nicoli Krukoff, as second chief, pro¬ 
vided the following insights about the seal harvest at St. Paul Island. Krukoff deposed 
before Treasury Agent-in-Charge William H. Williams at St. Paul Island, Alaska, on June 
8 , 1892: 

I am 43 years of age and was born at Sitka, Alaska. I can read and speak the Russian, 

Aleut, and English languages. I came to St. Paul Island in 1869, and have been here ever 
since, constantly employed among the fur seals, and I have had daily experience in all the 
branches of the business, from driving the seals to preparing the skins for shipment, and 
I am at present the second chief on St. Paul Island, to which position I was appointed in 
1891. 

The driving is all done by our own people under direction of the chiefs and we never drive 
faster than about half a mile in one hour. We very seldom drive twice from one rookery in 
one week and very few cows get into a drive before the middle of August. 

The Government has forbidden us to kill any more pups and we get other meat instead. 

All our people know the seal are getting scarcer every year and we think it is because of 
the schooners coming in and shooting the cows in the sea. Sometimes they try to land on 
the rookeries, but we drive them off with guns and they never get many seals that way. We 
earn very little wages now, and we expect the Government to keep us in food and clothing. 

Unless the schooners are stopped the seals will all be gone soon and then I do not know 
what my people can do for a living; they know nothing of other work and there is nothing 
else at the seal islands. 31 


Kushin, Aggie ( 1855 - 1900 ) 

Aleut Sealer, St. Paul Island, 1870-1892 or later (?) 

Assistant Priest, Greek Catholic Church, St. Paul Island 

Genealogy 

Aggie Kushin was born on the Kurile Islands circa 1855. Aggie Kushin married Mary 
(surname unknown) from St. George Island . 32 Aggie and Mary had two children, Lukera 
and Michael . 33 A nine-month old grandson, Nestor (b. November 7, 1892), 34 was listed 


387 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


in the St. Paul Island Census of June 30, 1893. 35 Nestor was apparently adopted by John 
Hanson (Hansen) by 1895. 36 Nestor married Nellie Golovin on August 28, 1911. 3 Nellie 
was born May 23, 1892, at Morzhovi, Alaska. 38 She was apparently an orphan residing at 
the Jesse Lee Home in Unalaska, which may have contributed to the discrepancies in the 
St. Paul Island census records which cite both Morzhovi and Unalaska as her birthplac¬ 
es. 39 Nestor and Nellie Kushin had one son, John Hunter Kushin, born at St. Paul Island, 
October 3, 1914. 40 Nestor died March 27, 1916. 41 Aggie Kushin died September 12, 1900, 
of “capillary bronchitis super-induced by measles.” 42 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Aleut sealer Aggie Kushin expressed his concern about the impact of pelagic sealing not 
only on the seal population but also upon the Pribilof Islands’ Native community. He de¬ 
posed before Treasury Agent-in-Charge William H. Williams on St. Paul Island, on June 
6 , 1892: 

I was born at Simshoe, Kurile Islands, and am 37 years of age. I came to St. Paul Island 
in 1867 and have resided here ever since. I can read and write in the Russian and Aleut 
languages, and am able to interpret the one into the other; and I understand the English 
language fairly well. At present and for several years past I am assistant priest in the Greek 
Catholic Church. My occupation on the island is that of native sealer, and I have been such 
since 1870.1 have a thorough knowledge of the taking of fur seals for skins in all its details 
as it has been done on St. Paul Island since 1870. 

I never saw many sealing schooners before 1884, but they have been coming more and 
more every year since, and I notice that as the schooners multiply in the sea the seals 
decrease on the rookeries. I do not mean to say that the seals were injured because a few 
were killed on the rookeries, when men from schooners landed on the islands in the night 
or when the fog was very thick, for the number killed in that way never amounted to much, 
as it is not often the raiders can land on a rookery and escape with their plunder. When, 
in 1886, we all saw the decrease of seals upon the hauling ground and rookeries, we asked 
each other what was the cause of it, but when we learned that white men were shooting 
seal in the water with guns we knew what was the matter; we knew that if they killed seals 
in the water that they must be nearly all females that were going out to feed, because the 
males stay on the islands until they get ready to go away in the fall or winter. 

I never heard any of the old men who have lived here for fifty years before my time speak 
of such a thing as sickness or death among the seals. We eat the flesh of the seal and it 
constitutes the meat supply of the natives, and seals from two to five years old have been 
killed by them for food every week during their stay on the land ever since the islands were 
peopled, and no one has yet found a diseased seal either young or old. 

When I first came here seals used to be driven from Half way [sic] Point to the village, a 
distance of about six miles; and from Zapadnie to the village a distance of nearly five miles. 

Wet, or very damp, cool weather was chosen for such drives, and we started the drive 
at about six o’clock at night and driving all night reached the village at from six to eight 
o’clock next morning. 

The seals are never driven at a greater speed than one mile in three hours; and the men 
who do the driving have to relieve each other on the road because they travel so slowly they 
get very cold. 

No one knows better than the natives that our prosperity is in the protection of the 
seals. They are our food supply, and our earnings from taking the skins enable us to live 
comfortably. Should the Company desire us to kill female seals, every native in the village 
would be interested in having the Government officer know it. 43 


388 





Biographies K ♦ Kushin - Notes 


1 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, convened at Paris 
under the Treaty between the United States of America and Great Britain, concluded at Washington 
February 29, 1892, for the determination of questions between the two governments concerning the 
jurisdictional rights of the United States in the waters of Bering Sea, vol. 3 (Washington, DC: GPO, 
1895), 261-2. 

2 Genealogical information from U.S. Census, 1900, 1910, and 1920; and “Ohio Marriage Directory,” 
Ancestry.com. 

3 Ann York, “Memories—Mark C. Keyes, 1928-1984,” Marine Mammal Science 1, no. 2 (Apr. 1985): 
186. 

4 U.S. Dept, of State, Passport Applications, Jan. 2, 1906-Mar. 31, 1925, NARA microfilm publication 
M1490, passport no. 14481 issued May 31, 1906. 

5 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 173. 

6 Betty A. Lindsay and John A. Lindsay, Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Genealogy and Census, NOAA Tech. 
Memo. NOS ORR 18 (2009), 59 and 319. No mention is made of a “Daria,” an “Antonoff,” or the pho¬ 
netically similar “Artomonoff” family in the St. George census records for 1880 or 1881. 

7 Ibid. 

8 Ibid. Two-year old Peter Tetoff is listed under his parents Zachar and Daria TetofF in the St. Paul 
Island Census of 1904 (p. 326), as the “Godchild” of George and Agafia “Kotchergin” in the St. Paul 
Island Census of 1905 (p. 335), and as the adopted son of George and Agafia Kotchergin in the St. 
Paul Island Census of 1906 (p. 339). 

9 Ibid. 

10 Ibid., 54 and 339. 

11 Ibid., 567. 

12 Ibid., 54. 

13 Ibid., 533. 

14 Biographical sketch provided by Larry Merculieff, Jan. 13, 2007, in an email to John Lindsay. 

15 Lindsay and Lindsay, Genealogy and Census, 54, 355. 

16 Ibid., 355. 

17 Ibid., 346. 

18 Official Log, St. Paul Island, Alaska, June 5, 1931. 

19 Lindsay and Lindsay, Genealogy and Census, 54. 

20 Official Log, St. Paul Island, Alaska, Apr. 15, 1947. 

21 Ibid., June 5, 1931. 

22 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 131-2. 

23 Lindsay and Lindsay, Genealogy and Census, 205. 

24 Ibid. The St. Paul census of 1908 (p. 371) listed Catherine Krukof’s birthplace as Kamchatka, which 
may have been mistaken as Atka by earlier census takers. 

25 Ibid., 340. 

26 Ibid. 

27 Ibid., 187, 340, and 356. 

28 Ibid., 295. 

29 Ibid., 400. 

30 Ibid., 400 and 417. 

31 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 132-3. 

32 Lindsay and Lindsay, Genealogy and Census, 205. 

33 Ibid., 227. 

34 Ibid., 380. 

35 Ibid., 241. 

36 Ibid., 272 and 380. 

37 Ibid., 427, 433, and 449. 

38 Ibid., 55, 449, and 474. See footnote n on page 454, which suggests Nellie Galovin’s birthplace was 
Unalaska Island. 

39 Ibid., 427. 

40 Ibid., 466. 

41 Ibid., 480. 

42 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, Sept. 12, 1900. 


389 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


43 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 128-30, 54. 






Luka Mandregan’s Barabara on St. Paul Island Village in January 1873. Henry Wood Elliott, Report on 
the Prybilov Group, or Seal Islands of Alaska, 1873. 


390 






L 


Lavender, Albert Webster ( 1842 - 1916 ) 

Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. George Island, 1891-1893 
Genealogy 

Albert Webster Lavender was born August 22, 

1842, at White Point, Queens, Nova Scotia, 

Canada, 1 to Allen Lavender and Catherine 
(Hoffman) Lavender. Allen Lavender’s family had 
English roots and had established itself in South 
Carolina during colonial days. The family relocat¬ 
ed to Nova Scotia after the Revolutionary War, as 
they retained English sympathies, but eventually 
returned to the United States and settled on Cape 
Cod. Albert’s father, Allen Lavender, was born at 
Charleston, South Carolina, and became a sea 
captain. Catherine Hoffman, of Dutch heritage, 
was born in New York’s Mohawk Valley. 2 

Albert Webster Lavender married Mary 

Edgar on February 14, 1871, in Parkville, Kings 

County, New York. Mary Edgar was born circa . „ . 

7 70 Albert Webster Lavender, circa 1890. 

1850 in England. 3 According to one source Albert (Alaska State Library, AW Lavender Coll., 
and Mary had eight children, but the source only MS235-38.) 

identified four by name. 4 A more recent source listed seven children: Edgar Worthald, 
born circa 1872 in New York; Katherine, born February 8,1874, in Yankton, South Dakota, 
and died February 6,1877, in Yankton; Carrie Alberta, born circa 1876, in Yankton; Mary, 
born October 8, 1879, in Yankton, died September 14, 1881, in Scotland, South Dakota; 
Robert Webster; Roy Allen, born June 22, 1885, in Scotland, South Dakota, died March 



391 










Pribilof Islands: The People 


14,1886; and Harrison Morton. 5 After his wife Mary died (November 2,1893, in Yankton, 
South Dakota), 6 Albert Lavender married Deborah Rooke Wynn (born in Yankton, South 
Dakota), a widow with one son, Frank Wynn. Deborah Rooke Lavender died October 18, 
1911, and Albert Lavender died on December 24, 1916, both in Yankton, South Dakota. 

Biographical Sketch 

Albert Lavender’s father and seven of Albert’s uncles served as captains of ocean-go¬ 
ing craft in the days when American clippers were known on every sea. Captain Albert 
Lavender, three of his brothers, and many of his cousins followed the family tradition by 
commanding saltwater vessels. 8 Because of illness, Albert was compelled to give up the 
sea and in 1872 had settled in South Dakota, where he became a businessman. In 1890, 
he sold his grocery and general store in Scotland, South Dakota 

to accept an appointment as special agent of seal fisheries for the Federal government, 
serving throughout President Benjamin Harrison’s administration.... He kept guard over 
the seals in the Pribyloff islands, limited the killing of the animals and prevented illegal 
sealing, serving until June 15, 1893. He did not know until that date that Grover Cleveland 
was a candidate for the presidency and had been elected. He was ordered to report at 
Washington and in September of the same year arrived again in Yankton, though he was 
frequently called upon in Washington for information until the following December. 9 

Captain Albert Lavender’s time in the Pribilof Islands was only one of many action- 
filled and rewarding life experiences. Excerpts from his biography in the History of Dakota 
Territory, vol. 5, by George Kingsbury illustrate not only Captain Lavender’s personality 
but also the type of man who served on the Pribilof Islands. 

Captain Lavender of this review was actively connected with seafaring from the age of 
eight or nine years, and yet, is frank enough to confess that he never left port without being 
seasick for a longer or shorter period. From early boyhood he went with fishing fleets to the 
banks of Newfoundland and, working his way upward, was for thirteen years in command 
of vessels. For ten years he represented the same firm, sailing out of New York, and he has 
visited every port of any importance on the five continents, in Australia and in the islands 
of the South Sea. His many years of life at sea at length affected his throat and while at 
Buenos Aires, South America, his voice was lost completely as a result of bronchitis. A sea 
captain without a voice is like a ship without a rudder and so he decided to quit the sea for 
a time. An uncle at Yankton [South Dakota] recommended that he try the western climate 
and the 11th of January, 1872, witnessed his arrival in Dakota. Today he is one of the most 
widely known citizens of Yankton. He has been identified with many lines of business in 
this state and has held various offices of trust in the service of the national government. 

After reaching Yankton he purchased a grocery business, in which he engaged from 1872 
until 1879. He then opened a general store in connection with his grocery and at the same 
time established a branch store in Scotland [SD]. In 1882 he sold his Yankton store, but 
continued business in Scotland until 1890, when he sold out.... 

On his return to Yankton Captain Lavender purchased cattle. He had previously engaged 
in that business while conducting his store and he continued to deal in cattle until the 
Spanish-American War, when he was appointed paymaster in the navy, serving on the 
flagship Cincinnati, most of the time in Cuban waters. The Cincinnati was about thirty 
miles east of Santiago when they heard the guns of battle. At full speed she raced along 
the coast, hoping to get into the battle, but arrived only in time, after a chase of eighty or 
ninety miles, to see the last vessel, the Santa Maria, sinking. Captain Lavender was the only 
paymaster chosen from civil life and because he could speak Spanish he was sent aboard 
the Santa Maria to receive the surrender of the vessel. He remained in the naval service 


392 





Biographies L ♦ Lavender - Lembkey 


until January 1, 1899, when he resigned and returned to Yankton, since which time he has 
been upon the road for the Excelsior Mill Company, buying produce which he ships to 
larger markets. He is thoroughly familiar with all trade conditions in his territory and is 
one of the best salesmen on the road. 10 

Captain Lavender has been familiar with the history of Dakota from the early territorial 
days when Indians were hostile and soldiers were continually passing to and fro between 
the forts and army posts. He was in Yankton when General Custer arrived there in the 
midst of a three days’ snow storm, covering April 12, 13 and 14, 1873. He lived in the 
territory through the period of the grasshopper scourge and the hard times caused by 
drought. During the flood of the spring of 1881 he was one of the rescue party and with 
a launch of a steamer and a crew he spent two weeks in constant rescue work, returning 
to town only when assured that all settlers along the bottoms of the Missouri and James 
rivers were safe. He rescued two hundred and fourteen at Gayville alone and more than 
that number from farm houses or on barns or hay stacks, where they had taken refuge 
throughout the flooded districts. Many there are who owe their lives to Captain Lavender’s 
untiring efforts in their behalf and all but one from the flooded districts were brought 
out alive. He was in Chicago with a shipment of cattle on the 12th of January, 1888, and 
therefore missed the fearful blizzard of that date. Among his many souvenirs and trophies 
of the long years which he spent at sea is a mass of melted Spanish money from the Santa 
Maria, which is both curious and artistic, resembling antique Chinese carving of grotesque 
figures. He has one mass weighing eleven pounds in the First National Bank at Elk Point. 

His son in Colorado has another of the four given him on the Santa Maria and the fourth 
he presented to a friend in Washington. 11 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Albert Lavender was the Treasury Agent at St. George Island during the years 1891-93. 
His deposition for the Tribunal of Arbitration offered some additional insight into the 
extent of pelagic sealing. Lavender was deposed by Notary Public C. L. Hooper on June 
7, 1892, in Alaska: 

I am 49 years of age, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of Scotland, South 
Dakota. I am now, and have been for two years past, employed as special agent of the 
Treasury Department, assigned to duty as agent in charge of St. George Island. While 
in Unalaska in September, 1891, awaiting transportation to San Francisco, I had an 
opportunity to examine personally the seal catch of the steam-sloop Challenge, which had 
been warned out of the sea, and was undergoing repairs at the harbor named. The catch 
amounted to 172 skins, which were all taken in Berhing Sea at various distances from the 
seal islands, and of this number only three were those of male seals, one of these being an 
old bull, and the other two being younger males. 12 


Lembkey, Walter Irwin ( 1870 - 1951 ) 

Assistant Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. Paul Island, June 1899-June 1900 
Agent, Seal Fisheries of Alaska, October 1900-July 1913 
St. George Island, October 1900-June 1901 
St. Paul Island, June 1901-July 1913 

Genealogy 

Walter Irwin Lembkey, son of William and Mary Burke (Hawksworth) Lembkey, was 
born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 18, 1870. Walter Lembkey married Grace 


393 





Pribilof Islands: The People 



Left to right: Assistant Engineer Wood, Second Lieutenant Camden, Dr. Samuel J. Call, Captain C. F. 
Shoemaker. Far right: Captain Albert W. Lavender. (Alaska State Library, AW Lavender Coll., MS235- 
49.) 

M. Hurd of Altoona, Pennsylvania, at Washington, D.C., in 1894. Walter and Grace’s only 
child, Julia H. Lembkey, was born in 1896. 13 Julia married William Lewis Brosius Jr., MD, 
who was a 1917 graduate of Johns Hopkins Medical School. Brosius was born September 
30, 1892, at Gallatin, Missouri, the son of Dr. William Brosius and Molly (Price) Brosius. 
Julia and William Brosius Jr. had three children, all born in Detroit, Michigan: Betty, Julia 
L., and William L. Brosius. Julia died in 1951 and William on April 3, 1976, at Riverton, 
Wyoming. Both are buried next to their parents at the Lyle Cemetery in Gallatin, Daviess 
County, Missouri. 14 Walter I. Lembkey died a widower on December 20, 1951, at Eloise, 
Wayne County, Michigan, and was buried at Arlington, Virginia. 15 


Biographical Sketch 

At the age of nine, Walter Lembkey was residing with his uncle, Justice of the Peace John 
J. Rankin, and attending public school in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. He graduated from 
Columbia University in New York City in 1893, with an LLM degree. Before entering 
government service, Lembkey was an editor for a local newspaper, general secretary of 
the YMCA, and deputy recorder of deeds; he also dealt in general real-estate business. As 
a college student he had earned money as a clerk-copyist for the U.S. Department of the 
Treasury from 1890 to 1892. 16 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

Walter Lembkey was appointed assistant agent of the seal fisheries on March 22, 1899, 
through the Sixth County Congressional District of Pennsylvania. His wife, Grace, and 
their daughter, Julia, accompanied him. Lembkey was later promoted to agent, with “gen- 


394 








Biographies L ♦ Lembkey 



395 


Walter and Grace Lembkey at the wedding of Alexandra Peterson to Peter Bourdukofsky, Saints Peter and Paul Church, St. Paul Island, September 8, 1908. 
Persons identified in the photo: 1. Alexandra Peterson Bourdukofsky, 2. Peter Bourdukofsky, 3. Alexandra (Melovidov) Mandregan, 4. Justina Nozekojf, 5. Agent 
Walter 1. Lembkey, 6. Paula (Stepetin) McGlashan, 7. Elary (Stepetin) Gromoff, age S, 8. Dr. Mills, 9. Mrs. Grace Lembkey, 10. Rev. John Orloff, 11. Juliania 
Gromoff, 12. Alexandra Orloff. (NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, RG 22-USBF 1.022. Photo cropped.) 








































Pribilof Islands: The People 


eral charge of all matters pertaining to the fur-seal fisheries of Alaska, including relations 
with lessees of the seal islands and the natives, guarding the seal herds, custody of build¬ 
ings and Government property.” 17 

During his first year on St. Paul Island, an issue arose regarding funds held by the 
North American Commercial Company (NACC) for the translation of the “Russian 
Church Ritual” into Aleut. The resident priest and Native chiefs asked Assistant Agent 
Lembkey to write an official letter on their behalf to the NACC. Lembkey wrote to NACC 
Agent J. C. Redpath: 

Office of Special Agent Treasury Department 
St. Paul Island, Alaska 
August 14, 1899 
Mr. J.C. Redpath 

Agent, N.A. Commercial Company 
Sir: 

At a recent conference between Mr. Morton, the Treasury Agent in charge, and the natives 
of this Island, the latter expressed a wish that the amount of money now on deposit with 
your company, contributed in past years by the natives of this Island, for the translation of 
their Church Ritual from Russian into Aleut, be paid by you to the Russian Consistory at 
San Francisco, it being understood that a portion of the Ritual has already been translated. 

In this request Mr. Morton acquiesced and directed me to issue an order for the amount. 

You are therefore hereby requested to pay to Rev. Nicholi Reeseff, the resident priest on this 
Island of the Russian Church, the amount above referred to, amounting to fifteen hundred 
and ninety two dollars and eighty four cents ($1,592.84) the amount to be forwarded by 
him to the Russian Consistory at San Francisco, to be placed to the credit of the natives of 
this Island, for the translation above referred to. 

This letter shall constitute your voucher for the payment of the above amount. 

Respectfully yours, 

W.J. Lembkey Treas. Agent, St. Paul Island 

Received the above amount from transmission to the Russian Ecclesiastical Consistory at 
San Francisco, to be used in translating the Church Ritual from the Russian Language into 
Aleut. 

(Signed) Rec’d, N.S. Reeseff 
Approved:- 

(signed) Nicoli Gromoff, First Chief 

(signed in Russian) Martin Nedarazoff, Second Chief 18 

Later, Agent Lembkey became embroiled in struggles with the marauding pelagic 
sealers. Beginning in the mid-1880s and throughout most of the first decade of the twen¬ 
tieth century, American and Canadian pelagic sealers killed hundreds of thousands of fur 
seals in the Bering Sea. Greed emboldened some sufficiently to dare to land on the shores 
of the Seal Islands. Usually under the shroud of the nearly omnipresent fog, the maraud¬ 
ers would land and kill many fur seals. Some of these pirates were captured and their 
vessels seized, thanks to the bravery of the islanders. Deadly force was always a prospect, 
but it never came to pass until 1906. 

The Japanese had been totally unprepared for pelagic sealing in the waters around 
northern Japan, where fur seals passed during their annual migration. Eventually the 
Japanese awoke to the many foreigners, primarily Americans and Canadians, reaping huge 


396 



Biographies L ♦ Lembkey 


profits in their backyard from natural resources 
including sea otters and fur seals. That realization, 
stoked by their own desire for big profits, motivat¬ 
ed Japanese fishers to take bold moves. In 1893, 
the Imperial Fisheries Company (Dai Nippon 
Suisan Kaisha) outfitted the Chishima no. 1 and 
the Chishima Maru no. 3 for pelagic sealing. 19 Not 
bound by the Paris Arbitration Tribunal decision, 

Japan moved eastward. In time, market changes 
and U.S. laws essentially eliminated competition 
by American and Canadian pelagic sealers sail¬ 
ing out of North America, but the same factors in 
turn encouraged Japan to move in for the kill and 
American sealers to sail under Japanese colors. 20 

In July 1906, Agent Lembkey reported at least 

thirteen Japanese sealing schooners surround- Walter, Julia, and Grace Lembkey, circa 
. 1940s. (Courtesy William Lewis Brosius 

mg St. Paul Island, killing seals both outside and iv.) 

inside the three-mile territorial limit. He observed 

that with the Japanese pelagic sealers hovering off 

the coast, just the process of counting seals on the 

rookeries would work disadvantageously toward 

protecting the seals. 

this island [St. Paul] after July 15 was surrounded 
by a large fleet of Japanese pelagic schooners 
hunting seals in the immediate vicinity of the 
island. To have continued counting under these 
circumstances would have involved the driving off 
the rookeries of large numbers of female breeding 
seals to fall the prey of pelagic hunters within sight 
of land. 21 






Possibly emboldened by the presence of so 
many compatriots, Japanese sealers decided to 
raid St. Paul Island at Northeast Point on July 16, 

1906, with fatal consequences. Several Japanese 
sealers were killed by an armed island guard. 

Coincidentally, Edwin W. Sims, Esq., solicitor 
with the U.S. Department of Commerce and 
Labor, arrived a few days after the raid and re¬ 
corded accounts of the incident. Sims’ report honored Agent Lembkey and the island’s 
Aleut guard and attested to the stressful conditions facing the island inhabitants during 
the pelagic sealing era. 22 (See Edwin W. Sims biography for appropriate excerpts of the 
reporting of the Japanese raid.) 


Walter, Grace, and Julia Lembkey on 
Government House porch with Native 
Chief Karp Buterin (right), St. Paul 
Island, 1902. (Courtesy William Lewis 
Brosius IV.) 


The U.S. Consul in Hokodate, Japan, estimated that the 1906 Japanese pelagic seal¬ 
ing fleet took 7,000 seals around the Pribilof Islands. Agent Lembkey contended that 


397 
















Pribilof Islands: The People 


that number was low if one considered the inefficiencies of pelagic sealing—that is, the 
number of seals recovered was small in proportion to those killed by pelagic sealers. In 
comparison, the North American Commercial Company take of sealskins in 1906 totaled 
14,476. Adding the number taken by Canadian sealers, with figures put forward by the 
London trade sales for “Northwest coast” skins, the 1906 pelagic take in the Bering Sea 
totaled 27,216. 23 

Despite the deaths of the Japanese marauders at the hands of the Americans, pelagic 
sealers continued to approach the Pribilof Islands. Reading the St. Paul Island Agent’s 
Log for 1906 reveals the relative magnitude of the incursions around St. Paul and Otter 
Islands, as well as some of the frustrations associated with those distractions. In the early 
1900s more revenue cutters began to patrol the Bering Sea against pelagic sealers, but not 
until 1907, the year after the deaths of the Japanese sealers, did the revenue cutter patrols 
around the Pribilofs become more forceful. 

The patrol about the islands during the summer of 1907 was energetic and by far 
the most active put forward in the history of the islands. There is no question that the 
captains in command of the cutters used every effort to prevent landings and to capture 
schooners within the three-mile limit. 24 

Even so, Japanese efforts to kill seals showed no sign of decreasing, and weather con¬ 
ditions, including fog and strong winds, shielded the pelagic sealers from detection and 
aided them in escape. Lembkey recorded several incidents in the 1907 St. Paul Island 
Agent’s Log. 

July 18, 1907 

While hauling in the skins which lay near the well house ... the company’s teamster 
Edward met three Japanese sailors, who with packs on their backs, were walking overland 
to the village. He ordered them into the wagon and drove with them into the village. 

The men could not speak English and none in the village could talk Japanese. The Chinese 
laundryman, however, by writing, could make out here and there a word in common, and, 
after giving them something to eat, which they requested by means of pantomime, they 
were brought to the Government House and an attempt was made to ascertain the facts in 
connection with their landing. 



View of warehouse and houses, looking 
toward Village Landing, St. Paul Island, 
September 1908. (NARA, Pacific Alaska 
Region, Anchorage. Photo: Walter Lembkey. 
RG 22, U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, 1907- 
1921.) 


398 










Biographies L ♦ Lembkey 


After a great deal of trouble and conflicting statements due to misunderstanding on both 
sides, their statement amounted to the facts that they were of the schooner EUN MARU, 
sailing from Sindai, Japan, of 48 tons burden, and carried 25 men and 7 boats. The master’s 
name was Kimdo Skiroka. On July 17, they approached the island in search of water and 
struck a rock, sinking in 45 minutes. None of the crew were drowned. These men did not 
know what became of the other boats. They made signs immediately upon arrival that 
they wanted food. The leader showed on the map of the island the location of their landing 
which was in the neighborhood of Lincoln Bight. They were given quarters in the Seduli 
house. 

They had quite heavy packs on their backs when they arrived at the village, consisting of 
clothing, ammunition box, with shell loaded and empty, and two shotguns, one 10 and one 
12 gauge. In the afternoon, after arriving at their quarters, the men changed their clothing 
and appeared very well dressed. 

It is hard to believe the statement that their ship was wrecked, especially since they had 
all their clothing with them, guns, compasses, etc., and cannot account for the other men 
in the crew. They probably are deserters. They tried to explain to the Chinese who acted 
as interpreter that the captain was rough with them, and went through a pantomime of 
striking and tying the hands behind the back. They repeated the story, however, several 
times of the ship’s having been wrecked. The interpreting was done through the Chinese 
writing characters on paper which were shown to the Japanese, who in turn wrote 
characters on paper in reply. How much of this either side could understand is conjectural. 

July 19, 1907 

The watchman sent yesterday to explore the North Shore to ascertain whether the 
statement made by the Japanese castaways to the effect that their schooner struck a rock 
and sunk is correct, returned last night about midnight. They state that nothing can be seen 
of any wrecked ship. Their boat was hauled up on the North Shore near Lincoln Bight. It 
contained six oars, six row-locks, 1 sail, 1 water-cask, full, one bottle of water, one long pole 
with three hooks, 2 rain coats and one sou’wester. 

The watchmen [sic] further reported that, when he was in the vicinity of West Point, he saw 
16 schooners and about 30 small boats, the latter all operating in the vicinity of West Point. 

... Of the 30 boats seen, 6 were well inside the 3-mile limit, and only about 400 yards from 
shore. Upon seeing the watchmen approaching, the boats turned and made away as rapidly 
as they could. 

This is the record day for schooners. The sixteen seen on the North and West sides are 
supplemented by 7 more, reported by the watch at North East Point, at the other extreme 
of the island. This makes 23 schooners in sight from the island in one day. 

Prom the fact that nearly all the boats from the 16 schooners on the west side operated in 
the vicinity of West Point, it must be believed that the seals, in traveling about the island 
converge at this point in the swift currents that make past this locality as the tide ebbs and 
flows. The sealers have been quick to grasp this fact, and to take advantage of it, as shown 
by their hovering in that place whenever the weather is favorable. 

The infamous Toyai Maru involved in the 1906 raid returned to haunt the Bering Sea 
in 1907. This time the crew from the cutter Perry boarded the Japanese sealer to find “sev¬ 
eral white men aboard.” According to the St. Paul Island Agent’s Log entries below, the 
Japanese sealers Kinzai Maru nos. 1, 2, and 3 also had white men aboard, and the owner 
was purported to be the wife of the U.S. Consul to Japan, Mr. I<ing.- D 

June 19, 1907 

At 6 p. m., a telephonic message was received from the watchmen at North-East Point to 
the effect that three schooners were in sight to the N. W. of the point, and sailing directly 
in. The guard was instructed by the Chief, at my instance, not to all[ow] any boat’s crew 


399 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


to land but to fire warning shots, should it be attempted. At 7 p. m., I had the second chief 
[give] a call up the Point, and it was reported that two of the schooners were about 6 miles 
out, and were not moving, but that one of them was coming in, and was at that time about 
4 miles off shore. 

The guard was instructed to keep the village advised as often as possible. 

June 20, 1907 

The watchmen at North-East Point report this morning that the MANNING was lying to 
the westward of Hutchinson Hill, in the same position where the schooners were lying last 
night. The schooners, however, were out of sight. 

June 21, 1907 

Mr. and Mrs. Judge drove to North-East Point this afternoon. In the evening ... Mr. Judge 
telephoned that a schooner had been seen by the guard there this morning, presumably 
about 8 miles out. 


June 22, 1907 

At about 1:30, the cutter [MANNING] got under way, steering in the direction of Otter 
Island. There she fell in with two schooners that evidently had been hidden behind the 
island. It is stated that one of the schooners was towed by the Cutter toward the Village. 

... The other schooner sailed in a Westerly direction. It is not known whether any of the 
schooners mentioned were seized. 

A telephonic message from Mr. Judge at North-East Point contained the information that, 
at 7 o’clock, there were two schooners in sight from that place. Both were a considerable 
distance from the Island. There were, therefore, four schooners sighted today. 

Watch was changed at North-East Point today, four men taking the places of those who 
have been on watch there during the week. 

June 24, 1907 

A schooner was seen to the Eastward of Otter Island and several miles away. Evidently she 
had boats out, as she remained in one position for a long time. 

June 25, 1907 

About 1:30 in the afternoon, native men who were watching from the village hill reported 
that three small boats were in the vicinity of Otter Island ... it was seen to fire from shot¬ 
guns. The smoke from the guns, as they were fired, could be plainly seen with glasses.... 

I observed the two boats to land at Otter Island and the crews to go ashore there and 
enter the house. Evidently there were no seals on the Island, for the boat’s’ [sic] crews soon 
reimbarked.... Evidently they were the crews of two schooners lying in the directions 
taken by the boats. 

About 7 p.m., the PERRY was sighted some distance off West Point. She anchored on the 
West side about 9 p.m.... The Captain stated that he had boarded the schooner to the 
N.W. sighted this morning, to which one of the boats at Otter Island evidently belonged. 

The Captain also told me that the prize which he captured off the Island the other day and 
took to Unalaska was released on order of Captain Munger, fleet captain, on the ground 
that the evidence obtainable showing her culpability was not sufficient to justify her 
being held for court. No sealskins were found in the boats, but arms and all other sealing 
paraphernalia were in them when taken inside the 3-mile limit. It is a question in my mind 
whether the evidence did not justify the sending of the captain and the crews of the boats 
to Valdez, as the section of the Alaska Criminal code which provides penalties for attempts 
states that if a person attempts to commit crime, "and in such attempt does any act toward 
the commission of such crime, but fails or is intercepted in the perpetration thereof,” he 
shall be punished upon conviction. (Sec. 192, March 3, 1899.) There is no doubt, from 


400 




Biographies L ♦ Lembkey 


the implements in the boat, that it was the intention of these sealers to violate our law 
by taking seals in our waters, and were only kept from so doing by their interception and 
arrest by the Cutter. 

The Captain informed me also that yesterday Captain Cantwell in overhauling a schooner 
had to fire one blank and one solid shot in her direction before the schooner came into the 
wind. 


June 26, 1907 

All hands went to the Point in the afternoon. The Government boat was taken up loaded 
with coal and supplies for the watchmen. 

Shortly after our arrival there the guard reported a schooner “close in” toward Hutchinson 
Hill. In about an hour the entire guard came armed to Webster House, stating that the 
schooner was standing in toward the rookery and was very close to shore. Mr. Judge and 
I, therefore, with the guard, ran over to Hutchinson Hill. On our arrival there, we saw the 
schooner standing to the N. E. and at least 3 miles off shore. The guard watched her until 
she went out of sight on her course. 

June 28, 1907 

While killing seals this morning at the Point several shots were heard coming out of the fog 
from the water in the direction of Sea Lion Neck. 

June 30, 1907 

At 11 o’clock three shots were heard out on the water in the direction of Zapadni Point, 
followed by three more at 11.27 and four more at 11.40. A guard was summoned, 
provisioned and armed, and the four men were sent to Zapadni rookery by boat, with 
instructions to guard that rookery from invasion, and to make a drive of seals early 
tomorrow morning, when the sealing gang would come over.... The fog is thick, and the 
weather calm. 

In the afternoon, probably 40 shots were fired off Zapadni Point. Firing was heard also in 
English Bay to the N.W. of the Milage. In the evening, cannon shots were heard to the S.W. 
of the village, as a signal for the small boats to assemble. The fog was too thick to make out 
anything.... 

The guard at North-East Point reports that they heard cannon firing in that vicinity this 
afternoon. 

Incursions into the three-mile limit would continue under the veil of fog. Eventually, 
the community became somewhat complacent as recorded by the agent. 

July 4, 1907 

The presence of schooners ... excites little or no comment, so long as the vessels are 
outside the 3-mile limit, and although sealing vessels are sighted almost daily they are not 
always reported unless sighted from the village, or something of importance occurs in 
connection therewith. 

On August 13, 1907, the NACC steamer Homer delivered to St. Paul Island two 10- 
barrel, 30-caliber, model 1897 Gatling guns, three 1.65 caliber Hotchkiss mountain guns, 
twenty-five 30-caliber Model 1898 rifles, and five 38-caliber Colt Model 1901 revolvers 
from the Rock Island, Illinois, Arsenal. 26 According to the Agent’s Log, these weapons 
were brought “for the protection of the island,” 2 presumably against potential maraud¬ 
ing sealers. The Agent’s Log, however, revealed that this weaponry found other practical 
applications. 


401 




Pribilof Islands: The People 



Men with cannons (possibly Hotchkiss 42 
mm and revolving 37 mm) aimed out to sea, 
with several men holding ramrods for load¬ 
ing barrels. These weapons were meant to 
protect St. Paul Island from sealing pirates, 
although they were more often used to signal 
ships. 1912. (NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, 
Anchorage, RG 22, U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, 
1907-1921.) 


Today Chief Merculif, two natives and I mounted and cleaned the other two [Hotchkiss 
guns] and I fired a blank shell from each of the three guns. The mechanism of these guns 
is simple they are easily handled and without doubt very effective for short distances. 

The rapidity with which the natives followed the literature available on the subject was 
gratifying. 28 

Eight men and I spent the entire day cleaning and mounting the two Gatling guns brought 
up by the HOMER. One was ready for business shortly before noon. We took it to the 
school house where I fired about 30 shots. One of the shells then became jammed and as 
we were not thoroughly familiar with the mechanism it took us considerable time to extract 
the Shell. We then tried it again, and the gun worked beautifully. About 50 shells were 
fired without any thing going wrong. These guns are superb pieces of machinery, which 
will require considerable attention to keep them in a state of efficiency. The discharge of a 
[Gatling] is not unlike that of a bunch of fire crackers but of course much louder. 

In order to familiarize the natives with the Hotchkiss guns the three empty shells on hand 
were re-primed and fired from the shop door several times. The Hotchkiss guns were then 
cleaned when both mountain and gatlings were covered with the paulins and all gear that 
came with them. The reloading of the Hotchkiss shells for signaling is a very simple matter. 

Lieut. Stromberg [of the Perry] complimented us on setting up the guns, especially as 
neither the natives nor I, had ever seen a Gatling, and not a scrap of literature accompanied 
either piece. 

All work on the guns was done in the native shop, which we found extremely convient [sic] 
and without which we would have been seriously handicapped, as the Company shop was 
in constant use by the Co employees, and there was no other suitable place on the Island. 

While the shop was built for the use of the natives, it is evident that the Government will 
be a large user of it. 29 

The records examined did not indicate that the Hotchkiss and Gatling guns ever saw 
action against marauding sealers, but sightings of schooners continued around St. Paul 
until the end of August 1907. 

On June 25, 1913, Agent Lembkey received a telegram from the Secretary of 
Commerce notifying him “that the position of agent, seal fisheries, was abolished by law, 
to take effect June 30 instant.” On July 1, 1913, he received another telegram stating that 
he was temporarily appointed special assistant agent-in-charge until Mr. Chamberlain, 
the naturalist to replace Dr. Walter Hahn, who had died of exposure earlier in the year, ar- 


402 





Biographies L ♦ Lembkey - Loud 


rived at the island (see the biography for Walter Hahn). Mr. Chamberlain arrived aboard 
the Homer on July 14, 1913, and Lembkey left the island. Agent Lembkey’s departure from 
the Seal Islands was either good timing, or indirectly responsible for one of the most in¬ 
famous scandals to envelop the Pribilof Islands over the behavior of the government staff. 
The next year, several government officials were charged with gross misconduct. Given 
that Agent Lembkey had conducted himself as an honorable leader, those officials who 
remained behind and fell into disgrace may not have done so if Lembkey and his positive 
influence had remained on the island. Conversely, Lembkey might have been caught up in 
the scandal by association (see E. Lester Jones and Alvin Whitney biographies). 

The 1920 U.S. Census showed that Lembkey had returned to Washington, D.C., after 
his service in the Pribilof Islands. He worked as a law clerk for the War Department. 


Loud, Abial P. (b. 1837 ) 

Assistant Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. Paul Island, 1885-1887 
Assistant Agent, St. George Island, 1888-1889 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

St. George Island Assistant Agent Abial Loud deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration 
on April 15, 1892, before Notary Public Charles L. Hughes at Washington, D.C. Excerpts 
provide the dates of his service in the Pribilofs: 

I am a resident of Hampden, Me., and am 55 years 
of age. On April 4, 1885,1 was appointed special 
assistant Treasury agent for the seal islands, and 
immediately started for the islands, arriving at 
the island of St. Paul on May 28 or 30, spent that 
season on St. Paul Island, and returned for the 
winter to the States, leaving the islands on the 18th 
of August. Went back again next spring arriving 
there in the latter part of May, and remained until 
August, 1887.... Spent the season of 1888 and 
1889 on St. George Island, returning in the fall of 
1889 to the States. In 1889 I spent some time in the 
fall on St. Paul Island. 

In July, 1887,1 captured the sealing schooner Angel 
Dolly while she was hovering about the islands. 

I examined the seal skins she had on board, and 
about 80 percent were females. 

I have conversed with the captains of several 
marauding schooners, and others who were 
employed in pelagic sealing have informed me 
that they usually use rifles in shooting seals in the 
water. Some, however, use shotguns, but to no great 
extent. From these conversations I should judge 
they did not secure more than one-half of the seals 
killed. 30 



Mrs. Abial Loud. (NARA, Pacific Alaska 
Region, Anchorage, RG 57, Photographs 
and Charts of Treasury Agent Abial P 
Loud, ca. 1885 — ca. 1889.) 


403 













(// / J a uj fit rf * y> 'jft, ' V /?■ 

/■/ r/ J/'iU ‘y/;( / ' ' 


Pribilof Islands: The People 



Abial Loud’s pencil map of the village of St. Paul, St. Paul Island, 1886. (NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, 
Anchorage, RG 57, Photographs and Charts of Treasury Agent Abial P. Loud, ca. 1885—ca. 1889.) 





















































Biographies L ♦ Loud - Lucas 



GRAY 4c nfc.RE.FORD. 


?>w 


f, 


From left to right: Dr. Hereford, Mrs. Loud, and Agent Abial Loud inside Government 
House circa 1886. (NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, RG 57, Photographs and 
Charts of Treasury Agent Abial P. Loud, ca. 1885—ca. 1889.) 


Lucas, Frederic Augustus ( 1852 - 1929 ) 

Naturalist, Osteologist, Scientist 

Member U.S. Fur-Seal Commission, 1896-1897 

Director, American Museum of Natural History, 1911-1929 

Genealogy 

Frederic Augustus Lucas was born March 25, 1852, at Plymouth, Massachusetts, the son 
of Augustus H. Lucas, a clipper ship captain, and Elizabeth O. (Sylvester) Lucas. Frederic 
Lucas married Annie J. Edgar on February 13, 1884. 31 Frederic Lucas died on February 9, 
1929, in Flushing, New York . 32 

Biographical Sketch 

“On one of several long voyages with his father, [Frederic] ... met a man who influenced 
the whole course of his life. This was Professor Ward of Rochester, who took young Lucas 
into his Natural Science Establishment at Rochester. He studied taxidermy, osteology, 
geology and comparative anatomy from 1871 until his appointment, eleven years later, 
as osteologist of the United States National Museum in Washington .” 33 Lucas joined the 
Smithsonian Institution in 1882 as an “osteological preparatory” (a scientist who prepares 
bones for further study or examination). He became assistant curator of the Division 
of Comparative Anatomy at the U.S. National Museum in 1887-98 and served as cura- 


405 
















Pribilof Islands: The People 


tor from 1898 to 1904. He remained at the Smithsonian for twenty-two years and then 
became curator-in-chief of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. 34 From the New 
York Times obituary for Dr. Frederic Lucas on February 10, 1920: 

In 1904 Dr. Lucas came to Brooklyn as curator-in-chief of the museums of the Brooklyn 
Institute of Arts and Sciences. In May, 1911, he was appointed director of the American 
Museum of Natural History to succeed Dr. Hermon C. Bumpus. Among the authorities 
who endorsed his selection were Dr. William T. Hornaday, Director of the Bronx Zoological 
Gardens, and Charles H. Townsend, director of the Aquarium, both of whom had worked 
with Dr. Lucas thirty-five years before at Professor Ward’s in Rochester. 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Frederic Lucas participated in the American Fur-Seal Commission investigation headed 
by Dr. David Starr Jordan. He contributed to the 1896 herd census on St. Paul Island '’ 
and wrote on the subjects of northern fur-seal taxonomy, anatomy, and biology for Part 3 
of the Fur-Seal Commission’s four-part report (David Starr Jordan, editor, The Fur Seals 
and Fur-Seal Islands of the North Pacific Ocean, U.S. Dept of the Treasury, Doc. 2017, 
Washington, DC: GPO). 


Lutz, John Edwin (1857-1937) 

Lieutenant, Revenue Marine, Pribilof Islands Guard, 1884 
Genealogy 

John Edwin Lutz was born in October 1857 at Circleville, Pickaway County, Ohio, one of 
three sons of lawyer John A. Lutz and Mary H. (Humphreys) Lutz. John Lutz’s brothers, 
also born in Circleville, were Harry E. Lutz, born September 18, 1860, and Samuel J. Lutz, 
born in 1867. 

John Edwin Lutz married twice, first in 1896 to Nellie R. Miller, born September 
1865, daughter of Oakland, California, banker William E. and Augusta Miller. John and 
Nellie Lutz had two daughters: Winifred A. Lutz, born November 1898, and Eulila E. Lutz, 
born June 1899, both in Oakland. Nellie R. Miller Lutz died in Oakland on November 25, 
1904. John Lutz married again in 1906 at Oakland to Ruby Smith, born June 20, 1878, 
in California, and died June 18, 1956, in Napa, California. No children were born of this 
second marriage. John Edwin Lutz died in Los Angeles, California, on February 15, 1937, 
and is buried at the Los Angeles National Cemetery. 37 

Biographical Sketch 

At age eighteen, John Edwin Lutz passed rigorous entrance exams and entered the Revenue 
Cutter School of Instruction, which later became the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. In June 
1881, he was one of ten cadets to graduate since the school had opened in 1877. After 
graduation, he became a third lieutenant in the Revenue Marine Service and was stationed 
out of San Francisco. He soon commanded revenue cutters in Alaskan waters and on 
Puget Sound in Washington state. 38 Among other things, Lutz was involved in land ven- 


406 







Biographies L ♦ Lucas - Lutz 


tures such as building the Union Pacific railroad terminus at Port Crescent, Washington, 
and the operation of a car ferry to Victoria, British Columbia. 39 

John Lutz settled in Oakland, California, in 1896, after his first marriage. The 1900 
and 1910 U.S. Censuses recorded John E. Lutz as a “miner, copper mine operator.” He had 
interests in the gold and copper mines in the Yerington District and Buckskin Range of 
Nevada, which had reported making a rich strike in 1906. By the 1920 U.S. Census, Lutz 
had re-joined the Navy as a first lieutenant. 40 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Third Lieutenant John E. Lutz served under Captain Michael A. Healy, U.S. Revenue 
Marine, aboard the steamer USS Corwin. In 1884, he was detailed to the Pribilof Islands 
and specifically to Otter Island to protect the fur seals against raids by pirates. In an 
ancillary capacity, he received orders to collect bird specimens at Otter Island for the 
Smithsonian Institution’s collection. His observations of bird behavior resulted in inter¬ 
esting commentaries about several species—from nest building and rebuilding to egg 
laying to notes on fledglings. 41 

Lutz’s report for the period June 1 to September 29, 1884, recommended monitoring 
Otter Island from St. Paul Island: 42 

A comparatively small number of seals visited Otter Island this season. While the necessity 
of this detail for the protection of Otter Island and St. Paul Island are self-evident, I would 
respectfully suggest that the officer sent there could perform that duty better if stationed 
on the latter island instead of the former. He should, of course, be instructed to visit Otter 
Island whenever practicable, as well as the more remote portions of St. Paul Island, in 
order to observe any possible depredations. Marauders are not so likely to attempt to take 
seal from Otter Island, which is so well protected by rocks and heavy surf, as they are to 
visit the northern part of St. Paul Island, where a fine sandy beach extends for miles on 
either side of the island, and seals are to be found in great abundance. With the small boat 
provided for use on Otter Island, and a crew of only two men, it would be impossible, 
usually, to board and seize any vessel which might be detected in the attempt to kill seals. 

I would respectfully urge the necessity of having a small boat howitzer provided for the 
officer detailed for duty at that place. With that, and a large boat and crew which the Alaska 
Commercial Company would be willing to furnish whenever desired, one officer stationed 
on the island of St. Paul could protect it and the adjacent waters from the depredations of 
marauding vessels, and would also be able to take by force any vessel found violating the 
law. 43 

On August 20, 1884, after having been stationed on Otter Island since June 10, 44 
Lieutenant Lutz and his two-man detail departed for St. Paul Island. 45 On August 29, 
a schooner was observed southwest of St. Paul Island. Nothing came of the sighting. 
Then in the afternoon of August 30, another schooner traveled along the western shore 
of St. Paul Island. Lutz surmised from the vessel’s behavior that it intended to take seals 
on St. Paul’s north shore. A patrol composed of Lutz and his two men, six Aleuts, and a 
volunteer from the Alaska Commercial Company (ACC) rowed about twenty miles to 
Northeast Point in a whaleboat furnished by the ACC. There the crew linked up with the 
Aleut watchman. On the 31st, Lutz monitored the vessel, which lay to twenty miles off¬ 
shore. By noon the inevitable fog obscured the vessel. Because the schooner lay to “in the 
middle of the Bering Sea,” Lutz could only assume that the crew intended to come ashore 


407 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


for seals. At 12:30 a.m. on September first the vessel came within a mile of shore on the 
eastern side of Northeast Point. Lutz immediately launched the whaleboat. After a mile- 
and-a-half row, the crew reached the anchored vessel around 1:00 a.m. 46 

I boarded her with my men and found the master of the vessel on board. Upon being 
questioned, he freely admitted that he was there for the purpose of sealing, and that his 
boats had been sent ashore to make a catch. I then waited for the return of the boats. 

During the wait for the sealers’ return, “The master ... pleaded to be released, making 
various excuses, and saying that I would ‘lose nothing’ if I would let the vessel go.” 4 
Eventually three boats returned to the schooner. The crew disposed of many of the seals 
overboard in an initial attempt to escape, but in the end they surrendered with twenty- 
one seal carcasses. Thereupon, Lieutenant Lutz notified Master Gustave Isaacson that he 
was seizing the schooner Adele of Hamburg, Germany. 48 

The Adele, built at Shanghai in 1877 as a pilot boat, measured fifty British tons. It was 
known as “The Flying Dutchman” because of its daring raids on sealing grounds under 
various masters. 49 Isaacson had sailed the Adele from Yokohama, Japan, on April 9, 1877, 
with three white officers and eighteen Japanese crew. Two other white men were aboard 
but not listed on the manifest; the captain claimed they were passengers. However, these 
passengers had accompanied the poachers ashore and by association participated in the 
poaching. Unbeknownst to Lutz, 50 the two had joined the Adele after leaving the crew of 
the Nemo, which following its purchase in 1884 from the Russians by adventurer, sea otter 
hunter, and author H. J. Snow, had been sent to the Pribilofs. 51 The Adele’s papers demon¬ 
strated she was cleared “for a hunting voyage to the North Pacific, the Kurile Islands, and 
return. She was therefore out of the waters for which she cleared, in addition to which 
she had no name painted on the stern.” 52 The skins already on board included those of 217 
seal, ten sea otter, eighteen sea lion, and thirteen fox. 

I had now six white men to contend with, and some of them were outspoken in their 
determination not to be arrested. They were beginning to arouse a spirit of resistance 
in the captain also, when I called him aside, formally notified him that I had seized his 
vessel in behalf of the Government of the United States, warned him against resistance 
and demanded the vessel’s papers.... One of the passengers, Sullivan by name, was more 
disposed to resist arrest than any of the others, saying that all he possessed “was in the 
vessel.” As I could not hope to keep six well-armed men under restraint with my small 
force, and as the vessel did not afford any safe place for confinement, I deemed it necessary 
to send them ashore to be kept there until... the arrival of the [cutter] Corwin A 

After daylight, they sailed the Adele to the village. 

Soon after our arrival at the village, word was received by telephone from Northeast Point 
that a schooner was there engaged in the capture of seals, and that another vessel was 
approaching from the northward. It was necessary to drive off these marauders as soon as 
possible, so I procured a fresh crew of natives and started forthwith. 54 

Lieutenant Lutz commandeered the Adele for the return to Northeast Point, where 
he intended to “give chase” to the other pirates. 55 

Upon reaching Northeast Point I saw one schooner lying at anchor, about six miles off¬ 
shore, her people being then engaged probably in skinning the seals taken from the beach. 

As soon as I stood off in her direction she got under way for the northward. Then she stood 
off and on, making signals by dipping the peak of her mainsail, from which, as well as from 
a chance remark made by one of the officers of the Adele, I inferred that these vessels had 


408 



Biographies L ♦ Lutz 


been acting in concert. Finally she hove to when nine or ten miles off-shore and waited for 
me. It was dusk when I drew near her and her people could not distinguish the revenue 
Hag until I was within one hundred yards of her. I then observed that the vessel’s name had 
been painted out. She immediately filled [sic] away and made all sail. I caused two shots 
to be fired across her bow and two into the upper part of her rigging, hailing her people 
after every shot and repeating the order for them to heave-to. Muttered imprecations were 
the only reply until after the fourth shot, when they fired into us. I then directed my men 
to aim lower, so as to rake the decks of the other vessel. I stopped fire at intervals to see 
if she would heave-to. She fired five or six shots into us, which we returned with fifty or 
sixty rounds. We suffered no damage, and they probably received little or no injury, as they 
were all under cover. Darkness had set in, the wind freshened, and I finally abandoned the 
chase. 56 

Lutz returned to the village to prepare for his voyage aboard th e Adele to San Francisco, 
where the crew would be prosecuted for the illegal taking of fur seals. During the day of 
September 2, three more vessels were sighted off Northeast Point, but he decided that “as 
the authorities had now been given sufficient time for equipping and sending out armed 
parties to protect different portions of the island, I considered it unnecessary for me to 
remain” 57 

Lieutenant Lutz eventually reached San Francisco with the Adele and her crew, 
except for nine of the Japanese who were left on St. Paul Island to be brought south by 
the Corwin. After some delay, the white men were arrested at San Francisco and the nine 
other Japanese held as witnesses. In the end all the Japanese were released, including 
those left on St. Paul, and the vessel returned to its owner in Yokohama. 58 The officers of 
the Adele pleaded guilty and were sentenced to four months imprisonment. 59 

In 1885, Special Agent George R. Tingle recorded the following epilogue to th eAdele’s 
seizure and the consequent fate of Lieutenant John E. Lutz: 

On Sunday, the 12th of July, while the lessees’ steamer Dora, was on her course from St. 

Michaels, via St. Paul, to Unalaska, she sighted a schooner about 15 miles from St. Paul, 
and under orders from me to go alongside of any suspicious craft he might fall in with, he 
stood for the schooner with full steam and sail. When close enough to see with his glass, 
he discovered her crew (about 20 men) very busy on deck. He could not tell whether they 
were throwing cargo overboard, or disposing of it otherwise. The men all disappeared on 
the nearer approach of the steamer, which was not long coming alongside of the schooner, 
whose name was painted out. The captain, when asked by Captain Hogue of the steamer 
Dora, said he was from Victoria, and gave the name of his vessel as the Adele, but Captain 
Hogue recognized her as the same piratical schooner captured here last fall by Lieutenant 
Lutz, of the revenue marine, with her crew ashore killing seals on the rookery, and loading 
them in their boats. She was taken to San Francisco by Lieutenant Lutz, who landed 
her safely and delivered her to the authorities. The voyage from here in her was a very 
dangerous one, and the exposure to which Lieutenant Lutz was subjected so prostrated him 
and shattered his health that he is still an invalid. The authorities released the vessel, and 
set all hands free; and the Government relieved Lieutenant Lutz of his commission. This 
is the reward of an officer in the faithful discharge of his duty. The captain of the steamer 
Dora, not having any authority to board her, had to let her go to ply her unlawful avocation. 

The captain of the schooner acknowledged that he thought the Dora was the revenue 
cutter Corwin when she started for him, as they are very similar vessels. The presence of 
this marauder the next season after being captured and released, shows the boldness of her 
captain and his disregard for the laws. 60 

We did not find any information to corroborate Tingle’s story as to the lieutenant’s 

fate. 


409 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


1 “Landers Genealogy,” Ancestry World Tree at Ancestry.com (accessed Jan. 10, 2009); and “Family 
Data Collection—Births,” http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dIl?db=genepoolb&gsfn=albert+ 
webster&gsln=lavender (accessed June 7, 2004). George W. Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory 
(Chicago: J. J. Clark, 1915), vol. 5, stated that Albert Webster Lavender was born at Provincetown on 
the point of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Aug. 22, 1842. 

2 Kingsbury, History of Dakota, 708. 

3 “Landers Genealogy,” Ancestry World Tree at Ancestry.com; and Kingsbury, History of Dakota, 

708, which stated that Mary Edgar was born in Brooklyn, NY, and that she was of English descent. 
According to Kingsbury, Albert Lavender and Mary Edgar were wed in Brooklyn. 

4 Ibid., 708. 

5 “Landers Genealogy,” Ancestry World Tree. 

6 Ibid. 

7 Ibid. 

8 Kingsbury, History of Dakota, 708. 

9 Ibid. 

10 Ibid. 

11 Ibid., 709. 

12 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, convened at Paris 
under the Treaty between the United States of America and Great Britain, concluded at Washington 
February 29, 1892, for the determination of questions between the two governments concerning the 
jurisdictional rights of the United States in the waters of Bering Sea, vol. 3, (Washington, DC: GPO, 
1895), 265. 

13 U.S. Censuses, 1900, 1910, and 1920; U.S. Congress, House, Appendix A to Hearings Before the 
Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Commerce and Labor. House Resolution no. 73, 

To Investigate The Fur-Seal Industry of Alaska, 62nd Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, DC: GPO, 1911), 
134-6 and 926; and http://Familysearch.org. 

14 Vincent M. Prichard, “Family View for Walter I. Lembkey and Grace M. Hurd,” http://trees.ancestry. 
com/pt/family.aspx?tid=4656070&pid= 12782; U.S. Census, 1880, Altoona, Blair County, PA, roll T9- 
1102, 80C; U.S. Census, 1920, Detroit, Ward 1, Wayne County, MI, roll T625-803, 6B; U.S. Census, 
1930, Detroit, Wayne County, MI, roll 1040, 13A; Lembkey-Brosius marriage, The Washington 
Post, Oct. 1, 1919, 7; U.S. Selective Service System, World War I Selective Service System Draft 
Registration Cards, 1917-1918 (Washington, DC); NARA M1509, Daviess County, MO, roll 
1683165, Draft Board 0; U.S. Social Security Admin., SSDI, William Brosius, Elizabeth Prather 
Ellsberry, compiler; and Cemetery Records of Daviess Co., MO, vol. 2, Chillicothe, MO, Elizabeth 
Prather Ellsberry, 1965, records 671-4. 

15 Michigan Dept, of Health, Vital Records, Lansing, MI, Certificate of Death file no. 1526. Walter 
Irwin Lembkey’s parentage was confirmed, along with death record information from original 
records held by descendant Kathy Brosius, Brentwood, TN, in a telephone conversation with Betty 
Lindsay, June 18, 2008. 

16 U.S. Census, 1880; and U.S. Congress, House, Appendix A, 134-6 and 926. 

17 Ibid. 

18 Letter, NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, RG 22, Location 20, 4-6, folder: Statistics of the 
Killing Grounds (accessed June 10, 2002). 

19 Oliver L. Austin and Ford Wilke, Japanese Fur Sealing, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Special 
Scientific Report, Wildlife no. 6 (Washington, DC: U.S. Dept, of the Interior, 1950), 17. 

20 H. J. Snow, In Forbidden Seas: Recollections of Sea-Otter Hunting in the Kurils (London: Edward 
Arnold, 1910), gives an interesting account of sea otter and fur-seal hunting in Japan and Russia; and 
Austin and Wilke, Japanese Fur Sealing. 

21 Comment by Agent-in-Charge Walter I. Lembkey in U.S. Cong., Senate, Letter from the Secretary of 
Commerce and Labor, Transmitting, Pursuant to Senate Resolution, of Mar. 2, 1908, Certain Reports 
Relating to The Alaskan Seal Fisheries, 60th Cong., 1st sess., S. Doc. no. 376, Mar. 11, 1908, in U.S. 
Bureau of Fisheries, Alaska Seal Fisheries, Compilation of Documents and Other Matters Relating 
Thereto, vol. 15 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1913), 12. 

22 Also see: U.S. Cong., Senate, Letter from the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, Transmitting, 
Pursuant to Senate Resolution, of Mar. 2, 1908. 

23 Ibid., 30. 


410 



Biographies L ♦ Notes 


24 Ibid., 70. 

25 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, July 20, 1907. 

26 Ibid., Aug. 21, 1907; and Briton Cooper Busch, War Against the Seals: A History of the North 
American Seal Fishery (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Univ. Press, 1985), 136, which erroneously com¬ 
mented that in 1907 the Alaska Commercial Company armed guards with Gatling guns and cannons 
to battle poachers. In 1907, the North American Commercial Company was leaseholder on the 
Pribilofs, not the ACC. 

27 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, Aug, 21, 1907, 40. 

28 Ibid., Aug. 21, 1907,40. 

29 Ibid., Aug. 23, 1907, 41-2. 

30 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 38-9. 

31 W. F. Brainard, Who’s Who in New York City and State: A Biographical Dictionary of 
Contemporaries, Fifth biennial ed. (NY: W. F. Brainard, 1911), 609. 

32 “Dr. F. A. Lucas Dies; A Noted Scientist, Authority on Fur Seal,” New York Times, Feb. 10, 1920, 30; 
and Vital Records of Plymouth, MA. 

33 “Dr. F. A. Lucas Dies,” 30. 

34 Ibid. 

35 Brainard, Who’s Who in New York, 609, stated Lucas was assistant curator until 1898 and became 
curator in 1897; we assume he became curator in 1898 and not in 1897. “Dr. F. A. Lucas Dies” stated 
that Lucas became assistant curator in 1887 and was promoted to curator in 1893 and served in that 
position until 1904. 

36 David Starr Jordan, ed., 77/e Fur Seals and Fur-Seal Islands of the North Pacific Ocean, U.S. Treasury 
Dept., Doc. no. 2017 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1898), pt. 2. 

37 Aaron R. Van Cleaf, History of Pickaway County, Ohio & Representative Citizens (Circleville, OH: 
Biographical Publishing, 1906), 258; U.S. Censuses, Oakland, CA, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, 

1920, and 1930; “Funeral of Mrs. Lutz,” Oakland Tribune, Nov. 28, 1904, 5; “Probate Notice,” 

Oakland Tribune, Dec. 14, 1904, 7; California Death Index 1940-1997, Ancestry.com; National 
Cemetery Administration, U.S. Veterans Cemeteries; and Nationwide Gravesite Locator, http:// 
www.cem.va.gov/. 

38 U.S. Coast Guard Academy, Academy History, “Education at Sea 1876,” http://www.cga.edu/about/ 
academy_history.aspx (accessed Jan. 22, 2007); “Notes From Washington,” New York Times, June 8, 
1881, 1; “Revenue Marine Cadets,” New York Times, Dec. 11, 1880, 3; and “Revenue Marine Cadets 
Preparing Officers Specially for the Service,” New York Times, Apr. 25, 1881, 2. 

39 “Harry Elmer Lutz Obituary,” Port Angeles Evening News, Dec. 12, 1950, 35. 

40 “Charter Car to go to Mining District,” Oakland Tribune, Sept. 28, 1907, 2; and U.S. Census, 

Oakland, CA, 1900 and 1910. 

41 M. A. Healy, Report of the Cruise of the Revenue Marine Steamer Corwin in the Arctic Ocean in the 
Year 1884 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1889), 31. 

42 Ibid., 28-35. 

43 Ibid., 32. 

44 Ibid., 31. 

45 Ibid., 31; and St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, Aug. 20, 1884, 350. 

46 Healy, Report of the Cruise, 31. 

47 Ibid. 

48 Peter Murray, The Vagabond Fleet (Victoria, BC: Sono Nis, 1988), 23. Murray wrote that the captain 
of the Adele was Gustave Hansen. 

49 Ibid., 23. 

50 Lt. Lutz was erroneously identified as Lt. Leutza by Secretary of the Treasury Charles Foster in U.S. 
Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 2, Appendix to The Case of the United States Before the Tribunal of 
Arbitration, 519. 

51 H. J. Snow, In Forbidden Seas, 197. 

52 Healy, Report of the Cruise, 33. 

53 Ibid. 

54 Ibid. 

55 Ibid. 

56 Ibid., 33-34. 


411 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


57 Ibid., 34. 

58 Snow, In Forbidden Seas, 197. 

59 Healy, Report of the Cruise, 5. 

60 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries of Alaska and General 
Resources of Alaska, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1898), 173-4. Also published as U.S. Congress, 
House, 1898, 55th Congress, 1st sess., H. Doc. no. 92, vol. 1. Washington, DC: GPO. 



National Weather Service Office, St. Paul Island, July 1971. Left to right: Juan Leon Guerrero, 
Meteorologist technician; Maurice Hubert Stans, Secretary of Commerce; Stuart Bigler, National 
Weather Service Area Director, Anchorage, Alaska. (NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, RG 22- 
95-ADMC-l 119) 


412 




















M 


Macoun, James Melville (1862-1920) 

Chief Naturalist, Biological Division, Geological Survey of Canada 
Pribilof Islands Fur Seal and Plant Specialist, 1891-1920 

Genealogy 

James Melville Macoun was born on November 7, 

1862, in Belleville, Ontario, Canada, to the “Dean 
of Canadian Naturalists,” John Macoun, and 
his wife, Ellen (Terrill) Macoun. 1 On January 3, 

1889, James Macoun married Mary MacLennan, 
born at Whitby, Ontario, circa 1863, the daugh¬ 
ter of Kenneth and Margret Douglas (Ireland) 

MacLennan. 2 James Macoun died at the age of fif¬ 
ty-eight on January 8, 1920, in Ottawa, Canada. 3 



Biographical Sketch 

“The Macoun name is connected with practi¬ 
cally all the botanical research work of Canada, 
and many of the plant species of Canada bear 
the name of Macoun.” 4 James Macoun graduated James Macoun _ (Jheo _ Ho i m> « James M 
from Belleville High School and earned a degree Macoun’,’240.) 

in botany from Albert College, Belleville, Ontario, Canada. In 1883, he became his fa¬ 
ther’s assistant at the Canadian Geological Survey. 5 The two collected many specimens 
of Canadian and Pribilof Islands flora and wrote numerous botanical books. Their speci¬ 
mens were added to Canada’s National Herbarium of the Geological Survey. 6 


413 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

James Macoun’s reputation as a first-rate biologist led to his selection as Canada’s natural 
history expert during Great Britain’s appeal to the Paris Tribunal of Arbitration for the 
resolution of claims by the United States that it had sole authority over the Bering Sea and 
the northern fur seal east of longitude 180 degrees. James Macoun’s biographer, Harlan 
Smith, wrote: 

In 1891, when the fur-seal industry of the Pacific Islands was a subject of diplomatic 
concern between Great Britain, Canada, and the United States, he was chosen by Dr. 

George M. Dawson, then director of the Geological Survey and Behring Sea Commissioner 
for Canada, to accompany him on a trip of investigation to Behring Sea. His services in the 
study of the life history and habits of the fur seal were so valuable that he was retained on 
this work in 1892 and 1893, and was sent to Europe as an expert in connection with the 
fur-seal arbitration." 

The British believed they received an honorable resolution of their claims before the 
Tribunal of Arbitration. 

[James Macoun], the Canadian sealing expert, thinks the most important points settled by 
the agreement of the experts at Washington acquit Canada of all wrong. The experts agree, 
he says, that pelagic sealing is conducted according to the rules under the Paris award, and 
that so long as the haunts of the seals on land are protected, and the protected zone at sea 
is maintained, the seals are in no danger of actual extermination. 8 

Despite that positive assessment, Great Britain agreed with the United States that 
additional scientific investigation was warranted to ascertain the truth on the contin¬ 
ued decline of the fur-seal population. Consequently, Macoun was enlisted to represent 
Great Britain and Canada on the 1896-97 Bering Sea Fur-Seal Commission; he also par¬ 
ticipated in further scientific investigations headed by Commissioner David Starr Jordan. 
In 1914, Macoun was appointed by the British government to join another American 
team of scientists including Wilfred Osgood, Edward Preble and George Parker, whose 
mission, in large part, was to ascertain the Pribilof seal-herd demographics (see Wilfred 
Osgood biography). Pribilof Islands schoolteacher and naturalist G Dallas Hanna made 
the acquaintance of Macoun during that time. Hanna affectionately wrote, “Macoun was 
here [St. Paul Is.] in 1913 [1914]. He didn’t get out very much. He was an old man in 1913 

[1914—at 52 years of age]. He went 
down to see the [Doctor] one day and 
said, ‘Doctor, my foot hurts. I wish 
you’d tell me what’s the matter with 
my foot.’ The Dr. said, ‘Well, if you’d 
change shoes and put the left one on 
the left foot and the right one on the 
right foot I think it would quit.’ He 
[Macoun] was a famous botanist. So 
was his father before him. They are 
very celebrated in Canadian natural 
history, but he was not in very good 
physical condition.” 9 



Fur-seal rookery on St. Paul Island with seals and hun¬ 
dreds of dead seal pups, circa 1897. (Univ. St. Andrews 
Library, D’Arcy Thompson Coll., Ms43333-35J 


414 






Biographies M ♦ Macoun 


Macouns participation did not appear to lead to a report about his findings. Eminent 
lur-seal expert Dr. Victor Scheffer commented in this regard, “We find no record of a pub¬ 
lished report. 10 Regardless, James Macoun’s scientific contributions at the Seal Islands 
made him the recognized Canadian seal expert. 

In 1896 and in 1914 he was again sent to the Behring Sea. In 1911 [James Macoun] spent 10 
weeks in Washington as one of the Canadian representatives at the fur-seal conference. For 
his special international work in connection with the fur-seal he was highly commended 
by Lord Bryce, then British Ambassador at Washington, and received a C.M.G. for his 
services. 11 

While Macouns charge was to study the fur seal, given his background he naturally 
became more interested in the plants of the Pribilof Islands than counting seals. He au¬ 
thored papers on mosses and plant identification. Part 3 of the Fur-Seal Commission’s 
report (David Starr Jordan, editor, The Fur Seals and Fur-Seal Islands of the North Pacific 
Ocean, U.S. Dept of the Treasury, Doc. 2017, Washington, DC: GPO.) contained Macoun’s 
report on the Pribilof Islands flora. 12 Macoun wrote later, “The Pribylov Islands are not so 
barren and bleak as they are generally supposed to be. Except where the rocks have not 
yet been covered with soil the ground is everywhere hidden by a luxuriant growth of grass 
interspersed with beautiful flowers. Though the hours of sunshine are few in summer this 
does not affect the coloring of the blossoms, for I have nowhere seen deeper, richer colors 
than are exhibited by the flowers growing on the Pribylov Islands.” 13 

Whether Macoun’s interpretations about the cause of the seal herd’s decline were 
influenced by his country’s strong desire to support its case for limiting harvesting and 
sustaining pelagic sealing is unclear to these authors. Certainly the historical record re¬ 
veals Canada’s predilection for its fishers working out of British Columbia. The following 
example of seeming bias by Macoun appeared in an independently published account 
(i.e., outside the Fur-Seal Commission’s report) of his interpretations. 

Some pups undoubtedly die of starvation, but the number is small and even when the 
mother is killed before the young one can procure food from the sea it not infrequently 
secures nourishment from other females. Several such cases have been noted by me. 14 

This account suggests that Macoun’s powers of observation regarding seal biology 
were poor, although the same cannot be said regarding his botanical observations. The 
female northern fur seal is not known to feed other than its own pup, and as seen in the 
accompanying photograph, many dead seal pups littered the beaches. However, Macoun’s 
other writings offer interesting perspectives about human life on the Bering Sea during 
those times. 

The native seal-killer on the islands ... is concerned only with the work of killing the 
seals and the consequent feasting such an ample supply of fresh meat affords him. While 
the men are busy clubbing and skinning the seals, the women and children are employed 
in cutting off the best parts of the carcase for use as food. All parts of the seal are eaten, 
tongue, heart and liver, as well as the solid flesh. A part of what is not consumed during 
the summer is dried for winter use, though the process is a long one on account of the 
prevailing foggy or wet weather, and the drying meat is unsavoury to a white man, both in 
appearance and odour. At the table of the sealing company such meat is served in some 
form at every meal. As dressed by cooks of experience it is very palatable, though rather 
gamy in flavour. The liver, is particularly good, at least those who are fond of liver say so. 


415 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


The life of the pelagic seal hunters is in every respect a hard one. On board the schooner his 
quarters are crowded and his fare often poor. He is allowed to remain on board in the very 
roughest weather, any day on which the boats may be lowered with safety being considered 

a suitable one for hunting_Often in the North Pacific, and nearly always in Behring Sea, 

the fog is so dense that the vessel can be distinguished only a few yards away, but these 
hardy, adventurous men, taking their lives in their hands, set out to look for seals with the 
same unconcern as if the day were clear. 15 


Malavansky, Nicolai (Nicoli) (1864-1927) 

Resident, St. George Island 


Genealogy 



The Malavansky family of St. George 
Island. Left to right: Stepineda (daugh¬ 
ter of Repsemia), Nicoli, Peter (son 
of Repsemia, and Nicoli’s nephew), 
Kleopatra (daughter of Repsemia), and 
Repsemia, who never married. (Charles S. 
Hamlin Coll., 728-040, Archives, Alaska 
and Polar Regions Coll., Rasmuson 
Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.) 


Nicolai Malavansky was born in 1864 on St. 
George Island, Alaska. Nicolai was the son of 
Maria Malavansky (b. 1835 on St. George Island; 
d. October 19, 1890 of “la gripp”). 16 Nicolai’s fa¬ 
ther’s given name was not determined by the 
authors. The Pribilof Islands census records 
spelled the given names of Maria Malavansky’s 
children variously. The more common spell¬ 
ings are; Repsemia b. 1858; Vladimir (Lodesna) 
b. November 10, 1870; and Vasilisa (Wasilisa) b. 
August 14, 1874. 1 ' 

Nicoli Malavansky married Fedosia 
Philomonoff, circa 1905. 18 Fedosia Philomonoff 
was the daughter (b. April 15, 1881) of Simeon 
and Lukaria Philomonoff. 19 Nicoli and Fedosia 
Malavansky apparently had no children, and 
by 1908 Nicoli became a widower. 20 Nicoli 
Malavansky died December 27, 1927. 21 


Biographical Anecdote 

The 1893 St. George Agent’s Log provided this reference to Nicoli Malavansky, who re¬ 
sided on the island: 

Nicoli Malavansky, a brother of Ripainnia and Vassa Malavansky, shall be recognized as the 
head of the family, and orders for supplies for the family shall be issued to him. His sister, 
Ripainnia, who is chamber-maid at the house of the N.A.C. Company, must be given a 
pass-book by the Company, and her compensation must be entered therein as a credit, and 
not be drawn upon except upon written order of the Government Agent in charge. 22 


416 













Biographies M ♦ Macoun - Manderville 


Manchester, J. P. 

Assistant Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury 

St. George Island, May-July 1886 and May-August 1887 

St. Paul Island, August 1887-July 1889 

Biographical Note 

Mr. Manchester resided in Hume, New York. 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

The following comment about J. P. Manchester was made after his retirement in 1889: 

On retirement of Mr. J.P. Manchester the Department loses a fearless, faithful, and 
honorable officer—one who has in the performance of his duties reflected credit upon 
himself and on his Government. 23 



Group of men wielding sealing clubs with Church of Saint George the Victorious in the 
background. From left to right: Clark Kirst, Eugene Kirst, St. Paul Island school teacher 
Henry N. Clark, ACC Superintendent Thomas F. Morgan, and U.S. Treasury Agent J. P. 
Manchester. St. George Island, circa 1887. (Washington State Historical Society. Photo: 
Dr. Charles A. Lutz. Henry Wood Elliot Coll., 087.37.doc/3.OLE.) 


Manderville, Purl Leroy (1896-1964) 

Storekeeper and Acting Agent, U.S. Department of Commerce, St. George Island, 
1937-1939 

Acting Agent, U.S. Department of the Interior, St. George Island, 1939—1940 
Genealogy 

Purl Leroy Manderville was born in Tolt, Washington, on March 15, 1896, to Gordon 
and Ida Manderville. In Portland, Oregon, in 1924, Purl married Esther Malvina Carlson 
(born 1893 in Michigan; died 1955, in Mesa, Arizona). Purl and Ester had one son, 


417 








Looking East towards village, St. George Island road. 

Plank road between the village and Zapadnie Rookery, St. George Island, 1931. (NARA, 
Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, RG 22, Administrative Correspondence, ca. 1888- 
1987.) 



Ester and Purl Manderville with son 
William, St. George Island, late 1930s. 
(Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, 
Edward A. Dunlap Coll. B96.ll.223.) 



William Gordon Manderville with lem¬ 
ming in hand, St. George Island, late 
1930s. (Courtesy William Manderville, 
SGI 74.) 


418 




Biographies M ♦ Manderville - Marshall 



Purl Manderville, Agent (left) and Mr. Olander, teacher (right), St. George 
Island, circa late 1930s. (Courtesy William Manderville, SGI 76.) 


William “Billy” Gordon, born in 1925 in Washington. Purl Leroy Manderville was work¬ 
ing as a printer in Seattle before his work began on St. George Island. Purl Manderville 
died in Arizona in July 1964. 24 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Purl Manderville worked for the government as a storekeeper on St. George Island for 
two years, 1937-1939. The Manderville family resided on St. George Island during a 
period of infrastructure development that included the construction of a power house, a 
Native bunkhouse, and two laundries for the Natives, as well as a 9,000-foot expansion of 
the wooden plank road to the Zapadnie rookery on the western end of the island. 


Marshall, Edison Tesla (1894-1967) 

Adventure Novelist 
Genealogy 

Edison Marshall was born August 29, 1894, in Rensselaer, Indiana, to newspaper pub¬ 
lisher George Edward Marshall and Lille (Bartoo) Marshall. Edison Marshall died at his 
Augusta, Georgia, home on October 30, 1967 . 2d 

Biographical Sketch 

Edison Marshall turned to writing full-time for national magazines after spending three 
years (1913-1916) at the University of Oregon. During World War I, he was a second 
lieutenant in the U.S. Army and served as a public relations officer, writing educational 


419 





























Pribilof Islands: The People 


film scripts for the Department of Defense. In 1920, while stationed at Camp Hancock in 
Augusta, Georgia, he met and married Agnes Sharp Flythe. A prolific author, Marshall 
published at least one novel per year from 1920 until his death in 1967. 26 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Edison Marshall was an internationally acclaimed American adventure novelist when he 
arrived at St. Paul Island on August 4, 1926, aboard the U.S. naval vessel USS Vega. 2 ' He 
was traveling the Seal Islands and other parts of Alaska to gather information for a new 
book. On St. Paul Island he spent ten days watching the assembly of seals and collecting 
information for his next adventure novel, The Far Call. The 1927 publication was an over¬ 
night success. The dust jacket of the 1928 edition proclaimed: 

Edison Marshall’s growing public will find him in THE FAR CALL surpassing any of his 
earlier efforts and bidding for the title of one of the foremost adventure writers of today 
with a voice that cannot be denied. Here is the reckless and bloody story of a polyglot gang 
of seamen who set out in these modern days to perform the greatest act of piracy since 
the time of Captain Kidd. Here is the old lure of strong men grappling each other; here is 
barricade-fighting, thundering sea and wickedness contrasted with the beauty of woman 
and the courageous tenderness of love. Marshall knows his men, his women, his settings. 

Let his gifted pen shang-hai you to the north oceans. 28 

Hollywood loved the story, and Walter 
Woods adapted the book for the screen. Two 
years later, director Allan Dwan and Fox Studios 
brought Marshall’s story to life. A “CINEMA 
FLASH” in the March 24, 1929, edition of the 
New York Times noted, “Allan Dwan has com¬ 
pleted ‘The Far Call’ featuring Charles Morton 
and Leila Hyams about the piratical raiding 
on the seal preserves of the Pribilof Islands.” 29 
Other actors of note included Bernard Siegel 
as “Aleut Chief” and Randolph Scott in his first 
credited movie role, in the part of villain/hero 
“Helms.” 30 

The Department of Commerce granted 
Fox Studios permission to film on the Pribilof 
Islands during the 1925 sealing season. The St. 
Paul Island agent recorded: 

Senator Clarence C. Dill, accompanied by his secretary Mr. Frank T. Bell and motion 
picture man Mr. Merl LaVoy were brought ashore from the USCGC Haida. The latter 
(LaVoy) carried permit No. 151 signed by Acting Secretary of Commerce L. Walter 
Drake. The party was escorted to Observation Rock and afterward to Lukanin. Mr. LaVoy, 
motion picture man for Fox Film Company, took pictures of seal life at both Gorbatch and 
Lukanin. 31 

Marshall’s other books served as the basis for five silent movies and five sound films, 
including the 1958 epic The Vikings. 


Far Call 


Q1 le 

FAR CALL 

MARSHALL 



Dust jacket of The Far Call, Edison 
Marshall’s novel about sealing pirates at¬ 
tacking St. Paul Island. 


420 







Biographies M • Marshall - Marston 


Marston, George W. (1825-1888) 

Assistant Special Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. Paul Island, 

June-August 1875 

Assistant Agent-in-Charge, August 1875-May 1876 
Assistant Special Agent, St. George Island, September 1876-May 1877 

Genealogy 

George Marston was born in Sandown, New 
Hampshire, on January 7, 1825, the son of wheel¬ 
wright Amos Marston and Susan (Flanders) 

Marston. George married Henrietta A. Clark, 
also of Sandown, in 1846. George and Henrietta 
Marston had three children: Henrietta E. Marston, 
born June 12, 1847, at Sandown; Andrew Jackson 
Marston, born October 1, 1850, at Portsmouth, 

New Hampshire; and Annie Susan Marston, 
born March 1853, in New Hampshire. Henrietta 
Marston died June 30, 1861; George Marston 
died August 16, 1888, at San Diego, California, 32 
and he was interred at the Mt. Hope Cemetery in 
San Diego. 

Biographical Sketch 

George Marston was a businessman, politician, newspaperman, and community leader. 
He had a farm situated on the town line of Sandown and Hampstead, New Hampshire, 
but his business and political life often took him elsewhere. As a newlywed in the 1850s, 
Marston ran a grocery store in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and “took quite a promi¬ 
nent part in politics during the administration of President [Franklin] Pierce [1853-1857] 
and occupied a government position in the treasury department at Washington.” 33 

George was undoubtedly influenced by his uncle Gilman Marston (1811-1890) to 
become involved with the political scene. Gilman had earned a law degree from Harvard 
in 1840 and maintained a law practice in Exeter, New Hampshire. A Republican, he was 
elected New Hampshire’s representative and senator to the 36th and 37th Congress, re¬ 
spectively, from 1859-1863. With his uncle’s encouragement, George Marston became 
“Doorkeeper” to the U.S. House of Representatives on February 6, 1860, a position he 
held for two years. 34 During the Civil War years, George was a paymaster for the Army. 
Afterward he accepted a two-year government appointment as Superintendent of Internal 
Revenue. In 1868, he entered into a business venture as part owner of the Portsmouth 
Chronicle in New Hampshire. 

Following Marston’s tour at the Pribilof Islands in the later 1870s, he returned to his 
farm in New Hampshire where he lived until moving to San Diego, California, ten years 
later. 35 



George Marston. (Courtesy Sandown, NH, 
Public Library.) 


421 







Pribilof Islands: The People 



Pribilof Islands Experience 

Assistant Special Agent George Marston 
arrived at St. Paul Island on June 27, 
1875. 36 In the Agent’s Log, Marston ex¬ 
pressed his discomfort at being left in 
charge following the departure of Agent 
Charles Bryant on August 6,1875, aboard 
the Alaska Commercial Company (ACC) 
steamer Alexander . 37 Nonetheless, 

Marston’s entries suggested that he was 
an honorable man and readily accepted 
his responsibilities to oversee the welfare 
of the Natives and the business practices 
of the government’s lessee, the ACC. 

September 24, 1875 

A deputation of the natives called upon 
Asst. Treas. Agt. Marston, and expressed 
a desire to have the 1st chief Bootrin displaced, and the 2nd chief Artimonoff appointed 
in his stead. They stated that Bootrin was not their choice; that he is intemperate and 
has other faults, which, in their opinion disqualifies him for the position. Their charging 
Bootrin with intemperance is hardly consistent, for they all drink and Artimonoff was 
himself very drunk on the 21st inst. 38 There seems to be two parties in the village, the 
strongest of which is the church party, and it is the latter that desire the appointment of 
Artimonoff. The [lessees’] officers desire the retention of Bootrin, as they say he is a man 
of better sense, more industrious, and reliable and fully competent for the position. The 
natives also complained that there was partiality shown in the distribution of the sea lion 
moneys. Mr. B.G. McIntyre, the [lessee’s] agent, denies this, and says that there are a few 
indolent men, especially among the older natives who never participate in the drives, nor 
clean the skins ... that he (McIntyre) was perfectly willing to pay every man for his labor 
but did not believe in encouraging indolence, or in paying the lazy for the work they refuse 
to perform, and which is accomplished by the industrious—in other words, to those who 
do the labor he shall give the pay. Col. Marston after hearing their grievances desired them 
to call again on Monday next. 39 


George Marston’s gravestone in Mt. Hope 
Cemetery, San Diego, California, 2009. Gravestone 
inscription reads: Col. Geo. Marston, Died at 
Horton House, San Diego Calif, Aug. 16. 1888., 
Aged 64 years, Miss Etta L. Marston, 1845-1924. 
(Photo: John Lindsay, NOAA.) 


September 27, 1875 

In the meeting had with natives in the salthouse, it was decided that no changes be made in 
the chiefs at present. I also told them that the sea lion belonged to the people and could not 
be bargained away. 40 

The following entry by Assistant Treasury Agent William McIntyre (no relation to 
ACC agent B. G. McIntyre) was challenged by Marston, as noted in the November first 
entry to the Agent’s Log. 


October 24, 1875 

Today witnesses the completion of sixty four new dwellings and the housing of every 
family in the village. These houses are gratuitously furnished by the Company, and given to 
the natives rent free. In addition, the Co. presents each upon the completion of his house 
with a new bed, and new stove and fixtures. These houses are all erected in a substantial 
manner, papered, painted, and are peculiarly adapted to the climate, and the habits of the 
people. These sixty four houses have cost the Company about $44,800.00, and as it was an 
obligation voluntarily assumed by them, it is but justice to state that they are entitled to 


422 












Biographies M ♦ Marston 


the gratitude of every Aleute [sic] on the island. This noble generosity on the part of the 
Company is in keeping with their general dealings with the natives especially in providing 
at their own expense for all the widows and orphans. Similar provision is being made for 
the natives at St. George, and for some at Onalaska. The village of St. Paul will today, in 
health, and all the comforts of life, compare favorably with any town of the same number of 
inhabitants in the states, (over* next page) 41 

The postscript marked with an asterisk was presumably added by Marston and re¬ 
ferred to the log entry for November first: 

November 1, 1875 

The record of Sunday Oct. 24th, the page before this, got into this book without my seeing 
it. As I was in charge of the Island at the time, I wish to say ‘tis not true. These houses only 
cost the Co. about three hundred dollars each, and they give nothing. The houses were built 
to get possession of the land by the Co. Natives done much of the work themselves. Geo. 
Marston. 42 

An additional log entry, written by Marston on October 25, is included here because 
of historical interest in the evolution of dwelling types on the islands, beginning with the 
semi-subterranean sod-covered homes called barabaras to wood-frame and concrete/ 
brick homes. 


October 25, 1875 

Natives engaged in pulling down Moleveedoffs old house, it having been decided [to build] 
a new one a little north of the site occupied by the old one; also the Priest’s barrabrakie [sic 
passim], which is torn down to make room for Moleveedoffs house. A new barrabrakie will 
be built back of Artimonoffs house, to be occupied by Cassian Shyenekoff and wife, and 
Herman Artimonoff. 43 

On November 21, Marston’s growing displeasure over the antics of the ACC agents 
was expressed through a somewhat disjointed commentary in an apparent moment of 
frustration and rage: 

The truth is—he [Co. Agent B.G. McIntyre] got his Irish up because I would not let him 
bargain with [Native Chief] Butrin to drive these peoples to go at the risk of their health 
and lives to get Sea lion [sic] belonging solely to this people and then take them [sea lion 
skins] all away from them on his own terms. So to spit his spite out upon me and Capt. 

Bryant, (as he made his brags) he had this house built, and put where Dr. McIntyre [B.G. 

McIntyre’s brother], Genl. Co. Agt., had told both Capt. Bryant and me none should be 
built. Said he [emphasis by Marston] would teach these Gov’t Agents to keep their place. At 
the time I was arguing against putting the house there, he said he knew that Capt. Bryant 
did not want one there, and that he should like to accommodate him, but he says that is 
asking too much. As Ben McIntyre nor the Alaska Comm. Co. neither of them own one 
foot, no not one inch of land on this whole Island. The audacity of the above remark from 
the truthful creature was more farcical than decent. It put me in mind of the record in 
the Bible, where the devil took our Savior up into a high mountain and offered him all the 
Kingdom of the earth, if he would fall down and worship him—a nice offer, when the old 
tormentor owned not an inch of all God’s creation. 44 

Marston’s feelings toward the ACC agents had not subsided by the next day. 

November 22, 1875 

They killed the Sea lion today about 12 PM 45 without informing me anything about it. A 
contemptible trick that will not be again passed over. 

The Sea lion belong to this people, and by the eternal they shall have them to use or dispose 
of as they please without let or hindrance from anyone, or any power, tis all the resource 


423 








Pribilof Islands: The People 




rt- — 



Rows of houses constructed by the Alaska Commercial Company, likely during the 1870s, 
St. Paul Village, St. Paul Island. (Alaska State Library, Gray and Hereford Photograph 
Coll., P 185.12.) 


they have for some months of the year, except a few fox skins that they have to compete for 
in getting, with some of the employees of the Alaska Commercial Co. 

The Alaska Commercial Co. have a lease to take fur Seal, under certain regulations, and 
nothing more . This last would seem to be enough, as they make more money out of that 
alone for the amount involved, than any other business on God’s given earth, or in the 
waters thereof. So I say they ought to be satisfied, and teach their agents to leave the Sea 
lion business to the people under the Gov’t, officer. I make the Record because an attempt 
was made by Butrin one of the Chiefs to bargain away to the A.C. Co. all the Sea lion skins, 
intestines, throats, etc. without consulting the peoples. Five or six of the best citizens came 
to me and made complaint, about his bargaining away their rights. I have now settled as 
I understand Capt. Bryant had it. That the Sea lion belong to this people, and under the 
Supervision of the Gov’t Agent in charge, will generally be driven here and killed, so that 
the meat-blubber and all can be saved to them. 46 

Assistant Agent George Marston was reassigned to St. George Island on September 
22, 1876, to replace William McIntyre (as noted, no relation to the ACC’s Benjamin 
McIntyre), who resigned effective September 30, 1876. 47 He made numerous observa¬ 
tions in the Agent's Log about life and conditions on the islands, wonderfully descriptive 
despite somewhat idiosyncratic spelling and writing style. 

Religion 

This [emphasis by Marston] is Russian Christmas. Church service from two this morning 
and so along at intervals all day. At 5 p.m. we all attended. Mr. Artimonoff had chairs kindly 
provided for the Americans. After church was out we went to the Company House, where 
we were entertained by the singers who were round with stars, and other mottoes of some 


424 








Biographies M ♦ Marston 


sort of flags with them borne by the boys. They sang very well, and their emblems looked 
quite pretty. 48 

The masqueraders were round in several parties some with accordions, they played and 
danced. A number of them called here. They behaved first rate and I enjoyed the calls. I 
came near forgetting to say that the old lady who does the washing at the Company House 
was one of the above party dressed in men’s clothes. She carried it out well, and danced as 
spry as a Boy, and appeared as young as any of them. 49 

This is the last day of Christmas “praisnicks” called Christiania (Chrischana) day. At the 
close of Church Service (about noon) the priest blessed a large cask of water for the season, 
the natives all run for their various vessels to get some of this water to take home some 
with pitchers some with tea pots some with bowls, etc. etc. The winding up of the church 
service was very interesting as it put me in mind of the beginning of battle or the 4th of 
luly. It was the firing of five heavy guns, each loaded with one and a half pounds of powder. 
They were let off on the Plaza in front of the Govt, house about noon. These guns spoke in 
loud tone. 50 

Three marriages took place at the church this forenoon. Timafay Evanoff and Evo Austigoff, 
Stephen KozerofF and Maria Sedick, Stepetin NeaderazofF to Anna Meeseekin. After the 
Priest had got through with the long service, which was performed as the parties stood side 
by side with large spermacetic candles lighted in the hand of each of the lovers, they all 
kissed three times each, that is, each of the pair. Thus were three couples united in the holy 
bonds of matrimony today. 

After the above was over, a child ten days old of Markiel VolcofF was brought in by Doctress 
Mary Sedick to be christened, this ceremony was longer than the moral law, the little thing 
yelled and had to be nursed while the Priest was saying or reading over the long service, 
finally he got through reading and the child was stripped and then taken by the Priest and 
dipped three times into a tub of water—he saying over some sort of rite, he then put the 
child into the arms of Stephen Belevlazoff, Godfather, who stood two paces to the rear of 
the tub of water with linen & calico across his arms and lighted candle in hand to receive 
the said infant. 


While this rite was being performed an incident occurred which is proper here to record. 

As Mrs. Dr. Mary Sedick who had brought the child in, and was standing by the side of the 
Godfather to take it home again as soon as the sendee was over, she was suddenly called 
out from her place to attend upon the wife of John Fratis in the birth of another son. She 
left as gracefully and as easy as a swan could swim down the lagoon, and with as little noise 
or flutter, simply whispering to Mrs. Beleylazoff to take her place, while she assisted in 
bringing another sealer to St. Paul, on this eventful Sunday May 7th 1876. 51 

Father Nicholv [Nikolai Kovrigin] conducted the church service today. His interesting and 
eloquent discourse was listened to very attentively by a large audience. No man could talk 
better than he did to them, he advised them to send their children to the school that the 
American government had kindly provided for them, and for them to learn the English 
language, as they were now and always would be under the great American nation and a 
part of it. A ball was given in the evening at the school house under the auspices of the 
Agents of the Alaska Commercial Co., much rain during the night. 52 

Father Nicholas T. Koveregein (Father Nikolai) departed St. Paul Island on July 27, 
1876. 53 


Sleigh ride 

Fair day and plenty of snow, by invitation of B.G. McIntyre went to a sleigh ride on a sled or 
land schooner fixed up with four chairs fastened with cords. We were drawn by two mules 
in tandem, with Nicholi [Krukoff?] on the forward one as guide, footman and post rider. 
The party’ was made up of four, Mrs. C.P. Fish, Airs. Wm. J. Alclntyre, B.G. Alclntyre and 
myself. We had a gay and palatial ride. I got tipped off one by my chair leg getting into a 


425 




Aleut boy and women gathering fur-seal meat on a St. Paul Island seal killing-field, May 9, 1892. 
(NAA, Arctic: Aleut series, lot 24, 1457900.) 



Aleut woman with a leather pack and 
holding a knife on a St. Paul Island, 
fur-seal killing ground strewn with 
seal carcasses, July 25, 1896. (Univ. of 
St. Andrews, DArcy Thompson Coll., 
DT31_Ms43795-86.) 


428 







Biographies M ♦ Marston - Martin 


Martin, Fredericka (Freddie) Imogene (1905—1992) 

Nurse, U.S. Department of the Interior, St. Paul Island, 1941-1942 
Author of books on Seal Island history 


Fredericka (Freddie) Imogene Martin was born 
in Cooperstown, New York, on June 2, 1905. 

Her father died in an accident before her birth. 

When she was five her mother remarried and 
they moved to Oneonta, New York. Fredericka 
Martin married Dr. Samuel Righter Berenberg 
(born August 2, 1910, died June 1982 at Paris, 

France) 62 in 1940. They had one child—a daugh¬ 
ter, Tobyanne—born on St. Paul Island in 1941. 

Martin and Berenberg divorced in 1950, and she 
moved to Cuernavaca, Mexico. Fredericka Martin 
died October 4, 1992, at Cuernavaca at the age 
of eighty-seven years. 63 Her daughter interred her 
mother’s ashes at the St. Paul Island cemetery in 
August 2007. 

Biographical Sketch 

A biographical sketch of Fredericka Martin pre¬ 
pared by Jessica Weglein of New York University’s 
Tamiment Library shows the development of Martin’s strong character and humanity, 
qualities that aided the Pribilof Aleuts in achieving their long-sought independence from 
being wards of the government: 

Fredericka (Freddie) Imogene Martin - Spanish Civil War nurse, writer, and historian ... 
a spirited child by her own account... grew up in a warm and indulgent family. Following 
high school, she lived and worked with the St. Margaret Episcopalian Order of Nuns 
in Jersey City, New Jersey, and in 1925 attended the affiliated nursing school of Christ 
Hospital. She graduated with honors and as a young woman practiced professionally in 
hospitals throughout New York City. As supervisor and head nurse she served on the 
staffs of Bellevue, Fordham, Lying-In Hospital, and Crotona Park Hospital. In 1929, Martin 
married English-born Alexander Cohen. During the early 1930s Martin became an active 
member in the nurses union, attended political science classes at the Labor Temple in New 
York City, and began developing her aptitude for foreign languages, learning Russian and 
Yiddish. In 1935, while visiting her in-laws in England she traveled to Germany and Russia. 

Her time abroad awakened her to the growing threat of Fascism. When she returned, a 
nurses’ union colleague encouraged Martin to become active in the then nascent Medical 
Bureau to Aid Spanish Democracy. Initially organized by a group of doctors and concerned 
citizens to provide medical supplies, food and clothing to the beleaguered Spanish 
Republic, by late 1936 the Medical Bureau was recruiting personnel to send to Spain as 
well. 

On January 16, 1937 Martin embarked on the S.S. Paris as part of the first American 
medical unit to Spain. Under the leadership of surgeon Dr. Edward Barsky, Martin served 
as chief nurse and administrator of the American Hospital division. The first unit traveled 



Genealogy 


429 











Pribilof Islands: The People 


with four ambulances, 12 tons of medical supplies and all the necessary equipment to outfit 
a 50-bed hospital. During her period of service, Martin supervised the work of fifty-four 
nurses, aided in the organization of six American hospitals on four fronts, and helped set 
up a mobile operating unit. She also organized literacy classes and trained Spanish women 
to assume some of the nursing and hospital administration duties. Her commanding 
bearing (at nearly 5’9” she was a full head taller than most of her staff), authoritative 
mien, and maternal attention to both the patients in the ward and the nurses under her 
management, earned her the affectionate appellation of “Ma.” 

In February 1938 Martin returned to the United States to conduct a yearlong national 
speaking tour, recruiting personnel and raising funds to keep the medical volunteers in 
Spain supplied. During the West Coast stretch of her tour Martin shared the stage with a 
representative of the Catalan government, and writer Dorothy Parker. Following her tour, 

Martin enrolled in the Public Administration program at New York University. Her studies 
were cut short when, in April 1939, she was invited to establish and serve as superintendent 
of a hospital in Greenbelt, Maryland—a federally funded housing initiative created under 
the Resettlement Administration. 

Martin’s union with Cohen ended in an amicable divorce in the late 1930s and [in 1940] 
she married her second husband, Dr. Samuel Berenberg [a doctor at Greenbelt]. In 1941 
Berenberg took a medical assignment on the Pribilof Islands 300 miles off the coast of 
Alaska in the Bering Sea. With Martin’s assistance, Berenberg managed the Fish and 
Wildlife Hospital on St. Paul Island. Martin’s work brought her into contact with the 
indigenous Aleut sealing community, non-citizen wards of the U.S. Department of the 
Interior. Stirred by their struggle for self-determination and freedom from decades 
of discrimination and exploitation (first under the Russians and later the American 
government), Martin spent the next ten years of her life advocating on behalf of the 
community. She came to be regarded as an expert on the Aleut, producing a series of 
articles and books including The Hunting of the Silver Fleece [1946], and Sea Bears: the 
Story of the Fur Seal [1960], editing an Aleut language dictionary, and translating numerous 
manuscripts and articles. 

With the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Martin and Berenberg returned to Greenbelt with 
their newborn daughter Tobyanne (named for Toby Jensky and Anne Taft, two nursing 
colleagues who had served with Martin in Spain). They settled in New York City where 
Berenberg became the chief of the Department of Health’s Child Health Services and 
Martin embarked on her career as a writer. Following the dissolution of their marriage, 

Martin moved with the 9-year-old Tobyanne in 1950 to Cuernavaca, Mexico. A cultural 
outpost for Spanish exiles and American expatriates, Cuernavaca proved to be a congenial 
home for Martin. For the next 40 years she supported herself as translator, a travel book 
writer, and an instructor at a Spanish language institute, working with her former Medical 
Bureau colleague and fellow expatriate Lini (Fuhr) de Vries. 64 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Fredericka Berenberg nee Martin accompanied her husband Samuel R. Berenberg, a spe¬ 
cialist in childhood diseases, to St. Paul Island, where he worked at the U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service hospital. They arrived aboard the Fish and Wildlife supply vessel Penguin 
on June 24, 1941. “Freddie” was seven months pregnant at the time. 

While preparing for the trip, Martin’s curiosity about the Aleut people and con¬ 
cern for their welfare somehow connected her with linguist Richard Henry Geoghegan 
of Fairbanks, Alaska. 65 Martin and Geoghegan corresponded regularly; he supplied her 
with historical background material about the Aleuts and the Pribilof Islands, and she 
assisted him as editor and typist for his 1944 book TJte Aleut Language: The Elements Of 


430 





Biographies M ♦ Martin 


Aleut Grammar with a Dictionary in Two Parts Containing Basic Vocabularies of Aleut 
and English. 

The language and overall well-being of the people of St. Paul Island became a lifelong 
obsession for Fredericka Martin. In June 1942, the U.S. military evacuated the Natives 
and civilian government personnel from the Pribilof Islands in response to the Japanese 
aerial attack on Dutch Harbor. 66 The islands’ Natives and some government personnel 
were relocated to Funter Bay, Alaska. 6 The Berenberg family also traveled to the Funter 
Bay Relocation Camp, but they did not debark from the transport Delarof. The family 
continued on to Seattle, Washington. 68 The traumatic relocation and the dismal sight of 
the relocation camps troubled Fredericka Martin. She immediately began sending off let¬ 
ters to government officials advocating better living conditions for the Pribilof Aleuts. 69 
Government officials allegedly accused Fredericka Martin of being a communist to un¬ 
dermine her efforts to help the Pribilovians—accusations that eventually backfired as 
they were brought to light to discredit the government and to sustain Martin’s heroic 
efforts to bring justice to the people of the Pribilofs (Jones, A Century of Servitude, 126). 70 
Among her efforts, she proposed a plan to properly pay the Natives for work performed 
in government service. Martin’s plan was finally implemented in 1951. While it lacked 
the same equities entitled to other workers in the United States, it served as the first step 
toward full compensation and benefits allowed under the Civil Service Act. The initial 
step provided “for a small annual wage with a gradual transition to a full one.” It also al¬ 
lowed for annual wage increases “based on wage rates on the Alaska Peninsula and the 
consumer price index for a moderate income family in Seattle,” and a continuation of, but 
at a reduced rate, the “seal bonus.” The seal bonus was based on the number of sealskins 
taken by the Natives and the amount received from sales. 71 

A substantial part of Martin’s work on behalf of the Aleuts materialized in her writ¬ 
ings about the islands, in her own books, in magazine and newspaper editorials, and in 
translations of other writers’ works. 72 

In 1986, Fredericka Martin returned to Alaska—first to Fairbanks, where she received 
an honorary doctorate from the University of Alaska, and then to St. Paul, where she was 
made an honorary citizen of the island. 73 



Fredericka Martin’s gravesite, St. Paul 
Island. (Photo: John Lindsay, NOAA.) 


431 











Pribilof Islands: The People 



USFWS Penguin anchored off St. George Island, 
circa 1938. (Courtesy William Manderville, 
SG39.) 


Fredericka Berenberg nee Martin, baby daughter 
Tobyanne, and Aleut children, St. Paul Island, 
circa 1941. (Courtesy Tobyanne Berenberg.) 



Maynard, Richard (1832-1907) 

Photographer, British Commission to Pribilof Islands, 1892 
Genealogy 

Richard Maynard was born in Stratton, Cornwall, England, on February 22, 1832, to 
Thomas Maynard and Mary (Squires) Maynard. Richard married Hannah Hatherly 
(1834-1918) in England in 1852. 74 

Biographical Sketch 

Richard Maynard was apprenticed as a shoemaker and fashioner of leather goods, but he 
felt a connection to the sea, a calling he pursued in the coasting trade between England 
and Wales during the summer months. Eventually the Maynards moved to Brownville, 
Ontario, Canada. The Fraser River gold rush of 1859 brought Maynard further west, and 
he and his wife, Hannah, settled in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1862. Richard learned 
photographic techniques from his wife, who “having learned photography in Ontario, 
opened one of Victoria’s first portrait studios, Mrs. R. Maynard’s Photographic Gallery, 
on Johnson Street. Richard, a shoemaker by trade, opened an adjoining boot and shoe 
store, but he preferred photography. The Maynards traveled throughout the Pacific 
Northwest, creating an extensive collection of negatives. . . . Hannah and her husband 
Richard practiced landscape photography.... Hannah’s work in both landscape and por- 


432 














Biographies M ♦ Martin - Maynard 


trait photography has made an important contribution to the documentation of British 
Columbia history.” 75 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

The Canadian government appointed Richard Maynard as its official photographer to the 
British Commission investigating the fur-seal question posed before the Paris Tribunal 
of Arbitration. Maynard arrived at St. Paul Island on the afternoon of July 21, 1892, with 
James Macoun, Canadas seal expert and botanist 6 (see James Macoun’s biography). 
Maynard documented his daily experiences in letters to Hannah. The following three 
lengthy missives found in the British Columbia Archives were handwritten and have been 
transcribed exactly as composed, leaving intact Maynard’s colorful spellings—in which 
the reader occasionally can almost hear his British accent coming through—as well as his 
colorful descriptions. It’s easy to imagine the pleasure that the letters from “your loving 
husband,” written after exhausting days on the island, brought to his family. 


Letter 1 

R. MAYNARD 
PHOTOGRAPHER, 

DEALER IN 

PHOTOGRAPHIC + SUPPLIES, 

Boots and Shoes, 

LEATHER AND SHOE FINDINGS 
P. O. Box 75 
41 Pandora Street 
Victoria, B.C ... 189 ... 

St. Paul Alaska 
July 22, 1892 

Dear Wife we arrived here all right & you must excuse me for not writing more a letter 
from Oonalaska for I was only given one hour notice when leavin thair & did not know 
than that the Danube was goin back to Victoria until one of the men told me just as we 
were starting so I put one of the little books in an envelope & gave it to him to take to the 
waiter that had my packing of clothes & plates to take to you, it is very foggy at present 6 in 
the morning but we are goin about 12 miles to a rookery today. 

July 23, 1892 

Well we have been to [North] east Point & got back & have seen something that no one 
would believe unless he seen it for himself in the shape of seals, we also seen lots of blue 
foxes & all kinds of birds, but only one little snow bunting. I would like to get some of them 
but no one is allowed to fire a gun on the Island & no one allowed to walk about without 
some one with him for fear he would disturb the seals we seen lots of them dead laying 
around killed by fighting with one another & in tumbing about in the fight the kill lots of 
than pups, it is very foggy today so I have nothing to do by walk around & write, to day 
I saw several Snow Buntings & lots of other birds that I would like to get but expect to 
get some on St. George Island as that is the Island for birds, I wish I had more plates Mr. 
McGowen wants the plates I fetched for myself I ought to have brought double what I did. 

Sunday 24 

Still very foggy & cold the mail steamer is supposed to leave here today so I had better close 
this letter & if she dose not go I may get something else to put in so good by for the present 
from your loving husband 

R Maynard 


433 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


Monday July 25, 1892 

It was cold & thick fogg all day yesterday they could not work at discharging coal, so the 
steamer left with the mail & what coal she had on board & she took some passengers from 
here, it is still foggy, we have had only Vi a day that we could do photography work since 
we arrived, thair is one good thing here that is thair are no house flies or mosquitoes that I 
see, we went out to the Haule that is the Drive & then they commenced to kill I took a few 
photos off it 5x8 & then went to Ketovie Point with shif & took some 8x10, 1x2 & 3x4 at 
Middle Ketovie, then went to Lukannon & took 5 6x7 one looking east one looking West 
with this & one out to Sea with seals in the water, went back & got diner & then sent to 
Reef Rookery & got a lot of photos of seals 

Tuesday 26 

After such a fine afternoon yesterday & doin so much work this morning it is as foggy as 
ever, I whish I had lots of plates to take some photes for myself you would think to see the 
sea & rocks there that you where back in Carnival with the heavy surf coming in on the 
beach, I lost my locket yesterday out at Ketovie Point & one of the officers on the American 
ship found it & gave it to Mr. Murry so I got it again I had offered 5 dollars for the one that 
would find it but they would not take it so I gave him Vi doz of them hancherfs to give to 6 
of the best behaved children on the Island 

Wednesday 27, 1892 

Got up this morning this is the first clear day we have had in the morning so I took the 
photo of the Church at Vi pas 5 in the morning than after breakfast went to Tolstoir & 
Zependie & took 8, 8x10 & 6 5x8 & got back well used up 

St. Georges Island 
Thursday 28 

Started for St. Georges Island on the Daphnie, got thair about noon it is only about 40 
miles went to work in the afternoon, the names off the places here are the same as on St. 
Pauls took a photo of Great Zapadnie looking S.E. this following is account of St. Pauls 
Zapendnie when we got to our journeys end we had lunch & we sat down by a large drift 
of snow & we cut an orange in halfs & made a cup than caught the drippings of the snow & 
had a good drink & it was good, as the water here & on St. Pauls is very bad, I have got this 
thing mixed up on account of the names been alike 

Friday 29 

Went across the Island I took a lot of photos all the photos we take on this Island are 5x8 
got back well tired although it is far better walking here than on St. Pauls 

Saturday 30 

Could not sleep last night had to get up & walk about, got better in the morning have the 
reason why in my packet now it is easyarr to carry that way, took 2 5x8 photoes of birds & 
one of the city from across on the Hill have only one 5x8 photo left, the mail leaves to day 

Sunday 31 

So good by for the present from your loving husband 
R Maynard 

P.S. we expect the Melpomenie here to day to take us back to St. Pauls Island to take all the 
photos over again I do not know what time we will leave for home 
RM 


434 





Richard and Hannah Maynard in front of their portrait studio, Victoria, British Columbia. 
(BCA, HP056736/C-08673.) 


435 





























Pribilof Islands: The People 


Letter 2 

Bering Sea, St. Georges Island 
Aug 2, 1892 Tuesday 

Dear Wife 


We have been waiting since Sunday for the Melphamene but it as been foggy ever since & 
no sight of her yet, they are goin to have a killing of seals this morning but I have no plates 
here but what are exposed, Captain Lavender sent one of his men out with a net & caught a 
sea parrot for me & I have skinned it also 2 or 3 chutchies or lesser Awk 

Wednesday Aug 3 

Ship arrived got on board 7 started for St. Pauls again got thair about 5 o’clock, it is still 

foggy. 


Thursday 4 

They had a killing to day at 5 o’clock in the morning but too foggy to photo, toward evening 
we went out & took a photo of a native in his Bidarkie I also took a rock at Signal Hill, 
the fog cleared up a little but now it is raining I am left here alone Mr McCowan is gone 
on a cruse in the Melphamene for 5 or 6 days, when I was leaving St. George I gave Capt 
Lavender the 2 fancy hancherfs for his wife & 2 of the others for his 2 little boys as they 
were very kind to me, I have also given one to the steward here for his little girl, 

Friday 5 

It is raining now & cold the Corwin as just arrived & is goin to take a mial so will finish 
this & send by her, I do not know what time I will get home but hope to get down on the 
Danube that will leave about the 19th or 20th of this month so no more at present hoping 
you are all well I remain yours 

Truly loving husband 
R Maynard 


Dear Wife & Children 


Letter 3 

St. Pauls, Bering Sea 
Aug 5, 1892 


Since sending my letter this morning I have been to North East Point again & it as been a 
clear day but no sun I took 6 photoes, we got 3 Day 8x10 plates from Oonalaska & we had 
one day here so we are set up again, 


Aug. 6 

Sunshine and rain also fogy but have done very well today went to Katavia than on to 
Lukannan than back to dinner then went to the reef Rookery & back 

Sunday Aug 7 

Very dull weather & cold they have a chime of bells here also a clock in the church I can see 
the time from my bedroom window, as well as our own I was in the church today to see a 
wedding went with Col Murray the government Agent here he is a pretty good man thair as 
been two weddings here to day pretty good for a place like this, 

Monday Aug 8, 1892 

Thick & foggy to day, cleared up at noon & went to Bogusloff Mountain & went about 103 
yards in the crater it was a sight I cannot describe, than went to Tolstoie on our way back & 
took a panorama of seal rookery got back tired out, 


436 





Biographies M ♦ Maynard 



St. Paul Village, St. Paul Island, 1892. (BCA, Richard Maynard Coll., F-0128S.) 


Tuesday morning 

Very thick & foggy they men are off to the killing of seals, cleared up again alittle & I 
started off to the killing & took a view of it, sat up last night until 10 o’clock skinning birds, 
and at it again this morning 


Been away getting more birds 


Wednesday 10 Aug 


Thursday 11 

Got the birds last evening skinned 2 & got up at 4 this morning & skinned one more Mr 
McCowen at back last night, I do not think I will be back on the Danube may be a week or 
10 days after the Danube arrives 


Aug 12 

Got up at Vi past 4 & went to work skinning birds thick & foggy all day done nothing else 
Friday 12 Mr McCowan & Mr. [Joseph Stanley-]Brown are gone to Zapedndiny to day left 
me home it is nice weather about the best we have had since we came here so I have been & 
got the photo of the shore line from R,R, looking towards Zapedney, I thought that I would 
be goin down with Mr. Brown he is the Agent for the American Government but I find I 
cannot so will try & send this by him let him have all the photos he may want he is going 
to send me some of his & he is a very good man he has helped me many a time with my 
camera carrying it for me when I was tired, at the present I have a bad finger got the arsine 
in it from skinning birds 


Saturday 

We have been out & took photos of the flowers that are growing on the ground & Mr McC 
has gone to collect some to make a bouquet to photo, we have the photo of bouquet & 
developed all right by Mr. Brown, he is goin to leave here to night or tomorrow morning so 
he as consented to take this letter to you, & I hope to be home in two weeks at the outside 
after you receive this hoping you are all well I remain your loving husband 

R Maynard 

Sunday Aug 14, 1892 

Cold & raw in the morning & fine in the afternoon went out to the cliff & got a young sea 
quail & skinned it 


437 






George 

Kotchotin 


Arkashoff 


KrukofF 


Mglovidov 


Hanson 


*"T" : % # 


Shabolin 


- 




Karp 

Buterin 




Sealing crew on St. Paul Island, July 1892. (BCA, Richard Maynard Coll., F-07754.) 



The Church of the Holy Apostles Saints Peter and Paul, St. Paul Island, 1892. (BCA, Richard Maynard 
Coll., A-04771.) 


438 










Biographies M ♦ Maynard 


Monday 15 

Finest morning we have had & started off to photograph, but it clouded all over took 3 
photoes & came back again 


Tuesday 16 

Very thick & foggy done nothing all day 

Wednesday 17 

Still thick & foggy cleared up alittle towards noon & went to Lukannon & took 2 photoes 

Thursday 18 

The raughie day we have had got keep in doors all day raining all the time 

Friday 19 

Still rough & very thick cannot see if the Daphnie is outside or not she should have been 
here yesterday the weather cleared up alittle at noon & we started off for Tolstoie but it 
clouded up again we took 4 photographs they will not be good, we found a lot of pups dead 
hundred of them so we had to photo them I took one without a stop no. 80 & 81 with large 
stop the light was so bad then we went home but got pretty wet so I changed everything & 
am now comfortable 


Saturday Aug 20 

Started for North East Point this A,M, that is the 3rd time I have been thair & the firths 
that we go about 12 or 15 miles & take the same views over again, Mr McCowen left me 
to come back with the natives & buck board Y he walked the North Shore, we took the 8 
photoes & got back by % pas 5 in the evening, when I got back the mail had arrived by the 
Daphnie & I got your letter but was sorry you did not get mine & the plates, as I expected 
Proups? Sent back al then I had not time to tell you at the time I sent them but never mind 
maybe it is all for the best, we have two more places to go to than we leve for home 

Sunday Aug 21, 1892 

The Daphnie is goin to call here on Wednesday to take us back, it is a nice morning now 
at 5 o’clock we intend to go over to where we say the dead pups & take tat over again the 
light was not good the last time we were there, got back from Tolstoie after taking the dead 
pups, got dinner than went to Reef Rookery & took 3 more 2 of them we had taken before 



Aleut in iqyax or “bidarkie” (kayak). The man is wearing a traditional waterproof kam- 
leika made from sea-lion intestine sewn with sea-lion sinews. (BCA, Richard Maynard 
Coll., F-02871.) 


439 



Pribilof Islands: The People 



Aleut men and women in fur-seal killing field, gathering skins and meat. St. Paul Island, 
1892. (BCA, Richard Maynard Coll., F-01284.) 


Monday Aug 22 

It is raining today still I think it will clear up after a while, I am just goin to skin some birds 
I got last Saturday, it did not clear up all day so did nothing, only one day more that is if it 
clears up so as the ship can find the Island, 

Tuesday 23 

We can see quite a distance but it raining & as been all night, it cleared up & we went to 
R,R, took one view than we got a whale boat & eight of us went to Zapendie this is our last 
for this Island I have packed up my things & waiting for the Daphnie to arrive. 77 

Many of Richard and Emma Maynard’s photographs are conserved by the British 
Columbia Archives in Victoria, B.C. The Archives cataloged Richard Maynard’s photo¬ 
graphs in a notebook that is kept separate from his photo collection. In 1985, Author 
David Mattison said of Richard Maynard’s work: 

Mr. Maynard’s photographic work has been of the highest order of excellence, and all the 
photography bearing the Maynard imprint represents the best in that art. He has done a 
great deal of work along this line for the government. He was in the Behring Sea and took 
the photographs of the seals, which were sent to Paris to be used for evidence in the famous 
arbitration case concerning the seal fisheries. 78 


McIntyre, Benjamin Griswold ( 1846 - 1886 ) 

Assistant Agent, Alaska Commercial Company, St. Paul Island, 1874-1876 
General Agent, Alaska Commercial Company, Kodiak, Alaska, 1876-1886 

Genealogy 

Benjamin Griswold McIntyre was the youngest child of James and Charlotte (Blodgett) 
McIntyre. Benjamin was born in Randolph, Vermont on August 22, 1846. On January 
6 , 1874, Benjamin McIntyre married Rosabelle Bradford of Barre, Vermont. Benjamin 


440 






Biographies M ♦ Maynard - McIntyre 


and Rosabelle had three children: Mary, born 
October 10, 1874; Bradford, born August 12, 

1880, and Alice, born August 23,1885. 4 Benjamin 
McIntyre’s brothers were Hugh H. and Hamden, 
who also worked at the Pribilof Islands. 

Biographical Sketch 

Benjamin McIntyre spent his early life in 
Randolph, Vermont, on his father’s farm and in 
the local public schools. “Ben was much more 
than a passing good fellow. He was not only a 
most successful, energetic, enterprising business 
manager, and the most trusted of all the numer¬ 
ous agents of his employers, but a large-hearted, 
generous, free-handed man, whose friends loved 
him with surpassing affection and whose en¬ 
emies respected him because they could not do 
otherwise.” 80 During 1869-1870, Benjamin was 
engaged in the manufacture of paper boxes in 
Boston. 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Probably under the influence of his brother Hugh McIntyre, Benjamin traveled to Alaska 
and went to work for the Alaska Commercial Company (ACC). His brother Hugh had 
first worked for the federal government as a special agent in Alaska, including the Seal 
Islands (1868 through early 1870; see Hugh H. McIntyre biography). Benjamin McIntyre 
rapidly rose to the position of general agent for the ACC at Kodiak and continued therein 
until his violent and untimely death on November 1, 1886. “On that day, the evening of 
his departure for home while entertaining his friends at dinner at his headquarters sta¬ 
tion on Kodiak Island, Alaska, an assassin [“Peter Andresoff, A Russian from the River 
Don” area of Russia 81 ], in revenge for some fancied wrong done him by the company, shot 
through the window, killing him instantly and wounding others at the table. The miscre¬ 
ant perished from cold and hunger in the Kodiak Mountains in attempting to escape.” 82 

One of the people sitting at the table when Benjamin McIntyre was shot was the 
English explorer Heywood Walter Seton Karr, on a New York Times expedition to Alaska. 
Karr recounted the incident as follows: 

St. Paul, Kodiak Island, Alaska 
November 3d, 1886 

The night before last I was the eye-witness to a shocking murder—none other than that of 
the general agent, whose corpse is on board. We start at noon for California, nearly two 
thousand miles distant. 

We were seated at supper at six o’clock in the evening—McIntyre at the head of the table, 
and Woche, a storekeeper, at the foot. Ivan Petroff [Customs and Signal Service Officer] 



benjamin g. McIntyre. 

Benjamin McIntyre. (Nickerson and Cox. 
1895.) 


441 








Pribilof Islands: The People 


was by my side. The meal was nearly over, and McIntyre had half-turned to get up from 
his chair, when a terrible explosion suddenly occurred, filling the room with smoke and 
covering the table with fragments of plates and glasses. 

McIntyre never moved, for he was killed stone-dead in a moment. Woche fell under the 
table, and then rushed out streaming with blood in torrents, for he was shot through the 
lower part of the head. The double glass window was smashed to atoms, for a cowardly 
fellow had fired through it, from just outside, with a spreading charge of slugs, presumably 
aiming at McIntyre, who received the main part of it in his back. Meantime the murderer 
who had thus shot into a group of unarmed and unsuspecting persons had time to escape. 

I succeeded in stopping the bleeding from Woche’s wounds, every one appearing paralysed! 

The suspected man, Peter Sanderson, a Cossack of the Don, cannot be found. He had, 
we found, attempted to fire his sloop, lying at anchor near the wharf; and had refused 
employment at cod-fishing, in order, as he said, to be present at the departure of the 
schooner. He had also been seen loitering with a gun behind the house. He owed money 
to McIntyre, who had twice fitted him out for sea-otter hunting, but both times he was 
unsuccessful. We have been scouring the woods with rifles, but the natives are frightened 
to death. Not a light can be seen in any house after dark for fear of its being shot into by 
this madman, who is still at large if he has not committed suicide. Nor can any of them 
be got to stir out at night, or to keep watch like sentries over the sloop, in case he should 
return, unless a white man is with them. 83 


McIntyre, Emma Jane ( 1848 - 1944 ) 

Lived on St. George Island, May 1874-Ju.ly 1875 and June 1876-September 30, 1876 
Lived on St. Paul Island, August 1, 1875-May 28, 1876 

Genealogy 

Emma Jane Baker was born on August 13, 1848, to Ashford Baker and Julia A. Baker, 
in Weymouth, Massachusetts. Emma Baker married William J. McIntyre, a native of 
New York, born in July 1845 to Scottish immigrant parents (see biography of William 
McIntyre). The wedding took place sometime before their departure in 1874 to the 
Pribilof Islands, where William J. McIntyre was appointed Assistant Special Agent to the 
U.S. Treasury Department. 84 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Emma was seven months pregnant when the McIntyres arrived at St. George Island in 
1874. She dedicated some time to writing a “little book,” recording her observations of the 
Pribilof Islands. 85 Her writings, sent to her mother, recorded important details about life 
on the Seal Islands during the early 1870s. 


Mrs. Ashford Baker 
Weymouth Landing, 
Massachusetts 
St. Georges Island, Alaska 
July 1874 


442 





Biographies M ♦ McIntyre 


My Dear Mother, 

I have from time to time written in this little book matter with reference to this island, its 
inhabitants, etc, which I thought might be of interest to you. I send it in this shape for your 
perusal. It will be more conveniently read than if scattered over several sheets of paper. You 
can do with it whatever you please— 

Your devoted daughter 
Emma 

The island of St. George embraces an area of twenty-seven square miles, showing 
everywhere traces of volcanic origins. It seems to be a huge pile of rocks partially covered 
with cinders and decomposed vegetable matter. Some of the Aleutian islands still have 
active volcanoes, but St. George has none. 

On some portions of the island cliffs rise almost perpendicular from the sea, to the height 
of 900 feet and more; other portions of the sea-margin are rocky and more gently sloping 
inland. There are only three very small sandy beaches on the island, one of these is not far 
from the village and is a pleasant walk at low tide. 

Fresh water ponds supply drinking water for the natives. A well has been dug for the 
use of the white people on the island, but it is shallow and sometimes becomes dry, and 
is consequently not always to be relied upon. There are no trees or shrubs growing, the 
only vegetation is tall coarse grass, the wild celery, a small plant bearing a berry similar in 
appearance to the huckleberry and a few plants bearing blossoms quite pretty to look at 
but devoid of fragrance. The grass furnishes good grazing for the cattle, sheep, goats, etc, 
which have been brought here by the A. C. Co. The celery root is considered by the natives 
as good eating. The brown berry is used by them in brewing their “quass” a vile intoxicating 
drink. I have commenced making a collection of the plants and flowers of the island. I 
have written instructions as to the best manner of pressing them, obtained from Mrs. H.H. 
McIntyre. They were furnished to her by a lady botanical friend. At a certain season in the 
Fall, quite pretty sea mosses are washed up on the South shore of the island. If possible I 
shall obtain some of these. 


Temperature of the Island 

Very erroneous ideas are entertained in regard to the temperature of this island. Most 
persons suppose it to be intensely cold in winter and nearly as much so in summer. It 
would be so, but for the warm ocean currents from Japan, which reach both St. George and 
St. Paul. On the mainland in the same latitude the mercury falls as low as 50 & 60 degrees 
below zero while here it is seldom if ever as low as zero. St. Paul is a little colder than St. 
George. The temperature varies so little throughout the year that the climate is very healthy 
where persons live in comfortable houses and observe the rules of health. There is very 
much fog and dampness during the summer and Fall, these being the conditions under 
which the seals make their rookeries here in preference to any other islands. They cannot 
bear much sunshine. 

There are many bright pleasant days during the year, however, particularly in the spring 
& early summer before the seals commence to come ashore. This month of May has been 
very pleasant. Occasionally there have been showers of rain and flurries of snow but no 
storms of severe winds. On a very clear day & from a high point, St. Paul can be seen. St 
Paul is much lower than St. George so that they can oftener see us than we them. Distance 
between the islands is 40 miles. The coldest weather on St. George the past winter was 26 
degrees above zero. How does this compare with winters in the Eastern states? 

The average temperature for the year 1871 was 28 degrees + 

1872 was 28 degrees + 

1873 was 29 degrees + 


443 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


The lowest at any time was 14.85 degrees, this was the average for the month of March 
1871. After reading this, you will not fear of our freezing up here, and when you also know 
that we have ten tons of coal brought every year for the Government House. 

The natives burn the blubber of the seal for fuel, except when the Company furnishes them 
with coal or they find drift wood on the beaches and rocks. In speaking of the vegetation of 
the Island, I neglected to mention the mosses. So moist is the atmosphere that they grow 
wherever there is a rock for them to grow upon. They are great in variety and beauty. Mac 
obtained some on the highest point of the island that are the loveliest I ever saw; indeed I 
did not know that mosses ever grew so pretty, I can scarcely describe them to you, but will 
try. 

Some are a thick bed of bright green with a frosting of light drab; and growing thick all over 
the moss are small flowers in pink, French blue and violet with different colored centers. 
Another kind is light brown in two or three shades with a small little green blossom 
surrounded with brown. Another has a growth on it of bright coral color. There are many 
other varieties, but these are the finest. 


The Natives 

Number about one hundred & twenty. They are a mixture of Russian and Aleut. Some 
are full-blooded Aleuts. The children all speak the Aleutian language & the parents speak 
both Aleut & Russian. The most intelligent speak the most & the best Russian. Only a 
very few speak any English. There are two brothers named Rezanzoff who understand it 
very well & speak some. The Chief does not speak it at all. When the Islands came into 
possession of the United States, he was an old man & did not feel ambition to learn it on 
that account. Under the Russian dominion, the condition of these people was fearful. They 
lived like savages and were dealt with in the most severe manner by the Russians. In fact, 
the Russians themselves who spent their time here had not sufficient ambition to live much 
better than the natives themselves. The agents describe the condition of things three or 
four years ago, when they first came here, as most deplorable. Only one small miserable 
wooden building on the island besides the church and very little to eat. The natives were 
obliged to depend upon the resources of the island mainly for food. 

Fancy the difference of things then and now. The Government has a fine house with every 
convenience for the agents who live there. The Alaska Commercial Company have put up 
a large dwelling house containing sleeping, round sitting-room, dining-room, wash-room, 
store-room & a very fine kitchen; also a building, a portion of which is a stable and the 
remainder a work shop, a nice large store, two stories high, well built and stocked with 
goods of every description; a ware-house also full of goods; a salt-house for the salt and 
skins and a nice building for the pigs and poultry. As fast as they can, they are putting up 
good houses for the natives and intend in another year to take down all the turf houses 
and give them all wooden dwellings. They charge the natives nothing for these, and require 
them to pay no rent. This is also being done at St. Paul, where a great many more will be 
required than here. The Company are not compelled to do any of this. Everything is done 
in a generous spirit, and their treatment of the natives is always just and kind. Any services 
rendered them by the natives are always repaid in coin and they are often paid more than 
they deserve, for they work very slowly at everything but sealing, at which they are from 
long practice, very expert. 

The white people on the island all mess together at the Company’s house, having more 
excellent living. They hire good cooks from San Francisco. The fare consists of fresh fish 
(cod and halibut caught by the natives near the shore of the island), fresh meat occasionally 
chickens, eggs, milk, everything in the way of canned fruits and vegetables, nice bread, 
splendid butter & coffee, etc, etc. The tea is poor and that is the only thing. They have had 
plenty of fresh milk all the past winter on St. George, and would have had at St. Paul if 
the cow had been properly taken care of. On St. George there are now ten cows and two 
heifers, several goats, two sheep, hogs & chickens in abundance; so that when meat is 
wanted, you see they have only to kill & eat. 


444 





1 



Men launching a baidarra, East Landing, St. Paul Island, 1895. (NAA, Frederick William 
True, lot 37, 1466600.) 


1 









ilifesi- 







A two-man iqyax. The men are wearing traditional kamleikas made from sea-lion intestine, 
Pribilof Islands. (AMNH, Special Collections, H. D. Chichester, HDC244, neg. 34915.) 


445 



















Pribilof Islands: The People 


One, of course, misses fresh strawberries, melons, peaches & such as that, but there is 
nothing in the way of substantials to be desired. Whenever the Steamer or vessel comes up 
from San Francisco she always brings such fruit as will keep on the voyage. The natives eat 
fish, sea-lion & seal meat both fresh and dried, birds and eggs and groceries from the store, 
which are always sold to them at reasonable rates. Many of them have chickens of their 
own and the Company buy the eggs of them. A few have pigs. The Company build for most 
of their dwellings a good sized building apart for a hen house, wood house, etc. they are 
paying the natives now to paint all of the buildings and in another year, this will be a very 
pretty little village. The houses of the Gov. & Company agents are to have a fence around to 
keep the animals at a respectful distance. 

The natives are generally shorter of stature than Americans. Their color is much that of the 
Chinese, some are darker. They are generally very healthy some of them living to a good 
old age. Their faces are not at all repulsive and a few of the children are absolutely pretty. 

As regards cleanliness they are improving very much, as they get wooden houses and see 
how the white people live. Some of their houses are kept tolerably clean. Formerly they 
had not much idea of neatness. The government agent has authority to compel them to 
keep cleared up outside their buildings and Mr. Falconer, who has been here, now for four 
years, has improved their habits & condition very much, through his unfailing industry and 
good judgment. He has had a nice road made over the hill from the shore up to the village; 
has had good dry soil or cinders (for such is the character of the soil) placed all around the 
government buildings and the brow of the hill and has kept things in good condition. In 
this particular St. George is far ahead of St. Paul. 

The natives dress in good comfortable clothes. 
Some of them are quite well off, having several 
hundred dollars. This they mostly earn during 
the sealing season. Some of them make coats 
& blankets of the pup skins and sell them. 

One thing they are not allowed to buy in as 
great quantities as they would like, and that is 
sugar; for with this they would be constantly 
brewing "Quass’ and be all the time beastly 
intoxicated. They get all of it they can, however, 
and use many things as a substitute; and it is 
necessary for the gov. & Co’s agents to work 
together to prevent their brewing. They are 
very shrewd in concealing this and it requires 
a vigilant eye to detect them in the act. If they 
are found intoxicated they should afterwards 
be reprimanded and their allowance of sugar 
shortened for a while as a punishment. The 
women drink as well as the men. They do not 
dare to resist the “government,” it is a magic 
work [sic] with them. So fond are they of liquor, 
that they will drink Bay Rum, Cologne and 
Florida Water. The Company had sent great 
quantities of these articles to St. George, but it 
soon disappeared and they have been advised 
to do so no more as the natives will employ any 
subterfuge to get it. 

They are very respectful to all white people 
here, but are rather deficient in gratitude for 
favors done them.... They are good natured 
and cheerful and not at all revengeful. The 
women know little about laundry work. A flat 
iron was unknown among them a few years 



Aleut wearing a traditional kamleika made 
from sea-lion intestine. This garment was 
worn by those traveling in traditional ocean¬ 
going craft, but it was also worn on land as 
protection against the rain and mist. The 
man in the photo is armed with a club used 
to kill fur seals and a knife used to remove 
the flippers and skin from the seal carcass. 

St. Paul Island, 1890s. (NAA, Joseph Stanley- 
Brown Lantern Slide Coll., lot 54-004.) 


446 

















Biographies M ♦ McIntyre 


ago. One or two girls from the Islands have been down to San Francisco and learned how 
to wash and iron and have taught some of the others. We have a woman here now who 
does our washing quite well, but she is very slow about it. Any kind of housework they, of 
course, know how to do only indifferently if at all. 

The Chief was appointed by the A.C.Co. when they took possession here. He is quite 
intelligent and a man of good sense. He rings a bell whenever work is to be done, thus 
calling the men together and appoints such as he chooses for particular kinds of work. The 
agents always consult with him when they wish to make a drive of seal or wish assistance 
from either the men or women in the house or outside. He can read and write Russian and 
keeps account of the labor of each man. Still he has no absolute authority among them. 
There is always a second chief to take his place in case of sickness or death. 

These people are all members of the Greek Church and are very devout as well as 
superstitious. The service is read by one of the men as they cannot afford to keep a priest 
for so small a church. They all stand during service. They formerly went in boats to St. 

Paul to attend service, but finding this tiresome & dangerous, they resolved to build for 
themselves a church of such drift-wood as they could pick up from time to time. With great 
credit to themselves for patience & perseverance, they accomplished this end and the little 
old-fashioned building stands now, soon however, to be replaced by a new & larger church. 
The new building will be placed farther up on the hill & the old one torn down. The spot 
where it stands will always be sacred ground to them and they will always cross themselves 
when passing it. 

At St. Paul they have a new church nearly finished. There is also a building on that island 
which is a great curiosity. It is built in the native style of building, the rafters being entirely 
composed of the jaw bones of whales. It has stood there a great many years evidently and 
bids fair to last a century longer. 


The Sea Lion 

There is on the south side of the Island a small sea-lion rookery where these animals 
number about four thousand the greater portion of which remain around the Island all 
winter or until the ice drives them from it. During this time many are taken by the natives 
for food, the flesh being of a much finer flavor than that of the fur seal. The skin is of much 
value for the manufacture of their “Bidarkiee” and “Biderahs” The Bidarkies are long, 
narrow boats covered on the top and excepting one, two or three openings where men may 
sit. They can draw their water-proof coats made of the intestines of the sea-lion over these 
openings & tie themselves in, thus keeping the boat perfectly dry even if a wave should 
break over & give the men themselves a drenching. The Biderahs are large open boats with 
a capacity of three or four tons burden. These are mostly used in loading & reloading the 
Steamer. They are very light & so strong and smooth is the covering that they easily glide 
over rocks without injury. The natives used to use the sinews of the Sea-Lion for thread, the 
flipper for the soles of their boots & lining of the throat for the boot leg. They make very 
few now as the Company furnishes them with plenty of good leather boots and shoes. 

Foxes 

There are both blue and white foxes upon the island. The latter were very numerous 
when the Island was first discovered by the Russians. The white fox evidently made its 
way to the island on the ice from the Arctic or main land during some severe winter; but 
the appearance of the blue fox is unaccountable, as the Pribyloff islands and Attou in the 
extreme western end of the Aleutian chain, are the only places in America where they are 
known to exist. 


Birds 

The sides of the cliffs are the favorite resort of myriads of water fowl who come here every 
season to breed while others breed under the rocks in the centre of the Island. During the 
spring & summer months the natives very readily secure without incurring much danger, 
all the eggs they desire. Stationing themselves along the edges of the cliffs, they entrap a 


447 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


great many of the birds by means of a net fastened over a hoop attached to the end of a 
long pole. One can see in one minute here, more birds than in a lifetime anywhere on the 
Continent. Mac is making a collection of the birds, their nests and eggs. He has learned to 
stuff the birds & hopes to secure two of each species before he leaves the island. 

Flies 

Are very numerous during the summer but they do not annoy one in the least. They have a 
growth of fur upon them and to me are a great curiosity. There are no other insects of any 
consequence, no reptiles & no cats or dogs. 

Of the seal I shall write but little as there is so much to be said. When I return, I will tell you 
all you wish to know concerning them. Good sealing weather is such as we are having while 
I write this—a south wind, heavy fog & occasional showers of rain. From the first of April 
until the middle of June there was no rain of consequence and there was much fear the Co. 
would not be able to secure the desired number of skins. Two months & a half of bright 
sunshiny weather has been heretofore unknown on these islands. The seals will not haul 
up much on the rookeries unless it is foggy and cloudy & they cannot be skinned in the 
sunshine as a few minutes of the suns’ rays upon them causes the fur to become loose. They 
are a very pretty animal and on our return we hope to be able to show you specimens of the 
pup and the one year old. Mac has already secured the former and skinned it. It makes a 
pretty specimen. 

Our house has a large sitting-room with small office at one end separated by folding doors, 
two good-sized sleeping-rooms with closets, a front and back entry, back store-room and a 
good sized attic. For furniture we have a fine large lounge, plenty of cane-seat chairs, a nice 
little rocker for me, a fine writing-desk, table and chairs. Our chamber furniture is cheap, 
but the bedding is excellent. Hair mattress and springs, and plenty of blankets. The A.C. 

Co., sent up when I came a fine Wheeler and Wilson sewing-machine, which I am to have 
the use of while here. Shall endeavor to make good use of it for the benefit of their agents. 

I have done for myself and others a great deal of sewing of various kinds since I came. 

There having been none but gentlemen here to look after things, a lady’s supervision and 
assistance was greatly needed. Mr. Falconer the gentleman who has been occupying our 
house, has kept it very neat however. 

During the summer season at least we all are very busy. For the gentlemen, there is the 
sealing and egging, loading and unloading of the Steamer two or three times during the 
season, the store to look after, carpenter work to be done, etc, etc. For me, I have some little 
housework, sewing, reading, study of Russian, etc. I have a nice guitar. I am learning to play 
some of it. It is quite a comfort as I have no piano. Mac and 1 are making very fair progress 
in our study of Russian. We do not expect to ever speak it fluently or very correctly, but 
would like to be able to converse freely with the natives. 

The women and children frequently call at the house. They will sit for a while, look about 
them, watch with much interest whatever I am doing & then go, no conversation having 
been carried on between us. They are always quiet and respectful. 

This winter I am going to have put upon my sleeping-room a small stove with place on top 
to heat water, etc, so that when the weather is severe, we need not depend wholly upon 
the large sitting-room stove for warmth and comfort. I have no doubt that we shall pass a 
very comfortable winter, although we shall be looking forward with much anxiety for the 
steamer’s arrival in the spring with news of our friends. May it be only good, cheering news 
after nine or ten long months of silence and expectation. 86 

Emma Jane McIntyre, her husband, William, and baby Margarite arrived home in 
Weymouth Landing, Massachusetts, on November 14, 1876. 87 


448 





Biographies M ♦ McIntyre 

McIntyre, Hamden Wallace ( 1834 - 1909 ) 

Agent, Alaska Commercial Company, 1871-1881 
Construction Foreman, St. Paul Island 

Genealogy 

Hamden Wallace McIntyre 88 was born at Randolph, Vermont, September 28, 1834. His 
father, James McIntyre, was a native of Vermont, as was his mother, Charlotte (Blodgett) 
McIntyre, whose ancestry can be traced to Connecticut. Hamden’s paternal ances¬ 
tors were Scots. Hamden spent his boyhood on his father’s Randolph farm. Hamden’s 
brothers were Benjamin and Hugh Henry, who also worked in the Pribilof Islands. “Mr. 
McIntyre was joined in marriage at Elmira, New York, in November 1859, with Miss 
Susan H. Johnson, a native of Maine. They had two children.” 89 Hamden died at Randolph, 
Vermont, September 19, 1909. 90 

Biographical Sketch 

Captain Hamden W. McIntyre 

The gentleman who is most concerned in this biographical sketch is a man whose modesty 
is scarcely less marked than his ability. He is in the prime of life, uncommonly tall and in 
bearing, a courteous gentleman ... 

He was educated in his native State, at an Orange County [Vermont] grammar school, 
working and teaching school between times to pay his tuition. At the age of twenty years, 
he learned the trade of piano and organ maker. In 1857, he went to Canada, where he 
became the superintendent of a lumber firm, near Ottawa, and remained three years in 
their employ. In 1860, he returned to Elmira, New York, and engaged in the manufacturing 
of machinery.... On the breaking out of the [Civil] war, he left his business under the 
management of his foreman and went to Washington, District of Columbia, where he was 
appointed as an engineer in the navy yard, remaining there employed in the adjustment of 
gunboat machinery until 1865, when he enlisted in the First New York Veteran Cavalry, and 
was discharged the same year near Charleston, South Carolina; then he returned to Elmira 
and conducted his manufacturing business [until 1870]. 

Mr. McIntyre’s favorite studies have been chemistry and mathematics, the former being 
first in his regard. His bent of mind in this direction led him doubtless to the study 
of fermentation and practical wine-making at the cellars of the Pleasant Valley Wine 
Company in New York, simply as a pastime during a period of idleness enforced by ill- 
health^] [Further] 91 and broader reading and study of this and kindred subjects followed, 
during the long winter nights of a ten-years residence in Alaska, where he was agent at St. 

Paul’s Island for the Alaska Commercial Company. 

In 1881 he commenced wine making in California at Captain Niebaum’s Inglenook Winery 
in Napa County, remaining there until 1887, when he came to Vina and took entire charge 
of the vineyard and winery of Leland Stanford. He is a master of civil and mechanical 
engineering. The winery building[s] at Vina, with the exception of the old fermenting 
house, were constructed from his designs and under his personal supervision, and many of 
the leading wineries of the State have also been constructed from his designs in whole or in 
part, or from his plans and drawings in full. Among them may be mentioned the Inglenook 
Winery at Rutherford, Bourne & Wise’s at St. Helena, M.M. Estee’s at Napa, Mrs. Collins’ at 
Mountain View, John Burson’s at Oakville, Goodman & Co.’s at Oak Knoll, near Napa City, 

C.P. Adamson’s and Ewer & Atkinson’s at Rutherford, Leland Stanford’s at Menlo Park and 
the late John A. Paxton’s at Santa Rosa. 92 


449 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

Hamden McIntyre worked as an engineer for the Alaska Commercial Company on St. 
Paul Island. The Agent’s Log credited him with engineering the construction of the fol¬ 
lowing buildings on St. Paul from 1872 to 1880: 1872—Government House, store house, 
Point Warehouse, four Native dwellings; 1873—new church completed; 1875—twelve 
new Native homes built, six in progress; 1879—salt house; 1880—telephone line instal¬ 
lation. Regarding the telephone line, Agent’s Log entries read: “Telephone completed to 
N.E. Point at 4 p.m., and communication had a perfect success,” 93 and “The Company 
[ACC] has constructed a telephone line connecting St. Paul Village with the Northeast 
Point of the island, where the largest rookery is located.” 94 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition: 

Hamden McIntyre deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration on May 16, 1892, before 
Notary Public R. Hilderbrandt in the County of Tehama, California. The following ex¬ 
cerpts were taken from that deposition: 

I am an American citizen, a native of the State of Vermont; my age is 57 years; I am a 
resident of Vina, Tehama County, California, and by occupation General Manager of 
Senator Leland Stanford’s Vina ranch and Palo Alto Vineyard. In the year 1871,1 entered 
the service of the Alaska Commercial Company, and was assigned to duty at the Pribilof 
group of islands in Bering Sea, first in the capacity of chief mechanic and later as resident 
Agent in charge of the island of St. Paul. 

I left San Francisco for Alaska early in April of 1871, and arrived at St. Paul Island about the 
beginning of May the same year, on which island I resided continuously until the close of 
the sealing season of the year 1881, leaving there in the month of August, except that I was 
absent on leave during a portion of the winter season in 1874, 1877, and 1880.... 

Under personal instruction from the late Senator John F. Miller, then president of the 
Alaska Commercial Company, I made a series of observations in order to determine 
as nearly as practicable the area of ground occupied by the seals, and incidentally their 
number, approximately, during the season of 1871 for the purpose of noting the changes 
which might occur from year to year. 

I was enabled from the observations so made to make a chart or map having upon it 
bearing and distances, the whole of which were verified by Lieut. Washburn Maynard, of 
the U.S. Navy, 95 slight differences in our measurements and observations only being noted.” 

The erection of “salt houses” at suitable places for curing the sealskins was one of the 
earliest works undertaken, and several were erected at points convenient to the largest 
“hauling grounds.” In addition to this, teams were furnished and skins hauled to the salting 
places or, in other instances, they were taken by boats as most convenient. 

In this manner the necessity for long drives was obviated and the work made easier in all 
respects. 

I have also no doubt as to the final result of this indiscriminate [pelagic] sealing. The dense 
fogs which prevail over Bering Sea in summer render the drawing of an imaginary line of 
protection about the seal islands absolutely futile and inoperative for such purpose; and 
unless full protection is afforded the animals, their extermination must follow as surely as 
in the case of the seals at the South Shetland Islands, or the buffalo on the plains on North 
America. 96 


450 






Biographies M « McIntyre 


McIntyre, Hugh Henry ( 1844 - 1906 ) 

Special Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, 1868-1869 
General Agent, Alaska Commercial Company, 1869-1870 
Superintendent, Alaska Commercial Company, Pribilof Islands, 1870-1889 

Genealogy 

Hugh Henry McIntyre was born on August 10, 1844, in Randolph, Vermont. Hugh was 
the fourth child of James and Charlotte (Blodgett) McIntyre. On January 31, 1871, Hugh 
McIntyre married Emma Lucy Miller, the youngest daughter of Orpha (Hewitt) Miller 
and the Honorable Crosby Miller of Pomfret, Vermont. Hugh and Emma had two chil¬ 
dren: Marion, born October 31, 1875, and Henry Blodgett, born May 26, 1877. 97 Hugh 
H. McIntyre died in Barnard, Vermont, on August 13, 1906. 98 His brothers included 
Benjamin and Hamden, who also worked at the Pribilof Islands (see Hamden McIntyre 
and Benjamin McIntyre biographies). 


Biographical Sketch 

The following biographic material for Dr. Hugh H. McIntyre is taken from the 1895 The 
Illustrated Historical Souvenir of Randolph, Vermont, by Nickerson and Cox. 

Hugh H. McIntyre was reared on his father’s farm and educated at Edward Conant’s 
school at Randolph Center. He enlisted in the 10th Vt. Vols. in August, 1862, before he 
was eighteen years old, served one year with his regiment, and was then transferred to 
the U.S. regular army Signal Corps, where he continued with the Army of the Potomac 
until the close of the war. He was employed as clerk in the office of the Secretary of the 
Treasury from 1866 to 1868, and as Special Treasury Agent for Alaska from 1868-1870. He 
installed the first Collector of Customs in that territory and reported on the seal fisheries 
of Bering Sea in 1869. He left the Treasury Department in 1870 to accept the position of 
superintendent of the seal fisheries for the lessees, and had active charge and management 
of them from this time until 1890; and was again employed by the government as agent of 
the State Department in 1892, in preparing evidence concerning the same to be used before 
the international board of arbitration in Paris in 1893. Dr. McIntyre studied medicine and 
graduated from the medical department of Georgetown College in 1868, and studied law in 
the Boston University in 1875-1876." 

In 1899, Hugh McIntyre graduated from the American School of Osteopathy, 
Kirksville, Missouri, and in 1900, he studied at the Post Graduate Medical College, New 
York City. 100 


Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Dr. Hugh McIntyre deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration at least seven times in 1892 
(March 31, April 5, May 6, May 12, July 28, and twice on August l), 101 providing his per¬ 
spective on sealing at the Pribilof Islands. In his sworn testimony on March 31, 1892, he 
stated: 

I went to that Territory in 1868 as special Treasury agent... to report what action was 
necessary to be taken by the Government for preserving the seal rookeries and securing 
a revenue therefrom. I arrived at Sitka in November 1868, remained there a few days and 
went thence to Victoria, British Columbia, touching at all principal points between Sitka 
and Victoria, spending the entire winter of 1868 and 1869 among the Indians and fur 


451 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


traders, learning their traditions and customs, and noting their catches of furs and manner 
of doing business. It came to my knowledge at that time that a considerable number of fur- 
seals were being killed by the Indians, mostly by the use of spears, in the waters adjacent 
to Vancouver’s and Queen Charlotte’s islands [sic]. The total catch obtained in this way 
amounted at this time ... to 3,000 to 5,000 skins per annum.... In the spring of 1869, I 
joined the United States revenue steamer Lincoln, and made the summer’s cruise in her of 
about four months, touching at many points along the Alaska coast between Sitka and the 
most westerly island of the Aleutian Archipelago, visiting the Pribilof group twice during 
the season. 102 

On May 12, 1892, Dr. McIntyre offered additional comments to his testimony: 

I returned to Washington, D.C., in November 1869, and was placed in charge of work 
during the following winter and spring pertaining to Alaska and the sealeries, in the office 
of the Secretary of the Treasury. 

In June, 1869, 103 1 accepted the position of general agent of the Alaska Commercial 
Company, and in the following August, when the lease of the right to take seals was 
executed, I became superintendent of seal fisheries for the lessees, and remained in this 
position until the spring of 1890. 

And on July 28, 1892: 

As superintendent of the seal fisheries [for the Alaska Commercial Company] I visited 
the seal islands twice in the summer of 1870; remained constantly thereon from April, 

1871, until September, 1872, and thereafter went to the islands every summer from 1873 
until 1889, inclusive, excepting 1883, 1884 and 1885. I usually remained on the islands 
about four months, from May until August, in each season, supervising the annual seal 


H H. MclNTYRE. 

A*ent at the Seal Islands Captain M. C. ERSKINE Professor GEORGE DAVIDSON GUSTAVE NIEBAUM 



Left to right: Hugh H. McIntyre (Alaska Commercial Company); Captain Melville C. 
Erskine (Alaska Commercial Company); George Davidson (U.S. Coast and Geodetic 
Survey); and Gustave Niebaum (Alaska Commercial Company) at the Alaska 
Commercial Company office in San Francisco. (Samuel P. Johnston, Alaska Commercial 
Company 1868-1940, 1940). 


452 













Biographies M ♦ McIntyre 


catch, examining the conditions of seal life, studying the habits of the seals, and, in brief, 
doing such work as the interests of the lessees seemed to demand. I also went twice to 
London, first in 1872, and again in 1886, to attend the fur seal trade sales with a view to 
becoming more thoroughly acquainted with the demands of the sealskin market. My duties 
as such special Treasury agent and superintendent demanded and received my attention 
to every detail of seal life and its relation to commerce. In the execution of these duties 
I was constantly aided by able, intelligent assistants and native seal hunters, whose daily 
observations and reports were from time to time communicated to me. 104 

The work of seal killing is done by the Aleutian inhabitants of the seal islands under the 
immediate supervision of the superintendent for the lessees and his assistants. The natives 
are directed by their chiefs, who are either chosen by themselves or appointed by the 
Treasury agent in charge. The force of natives is divided into gangs of 20 to 30 men, each 
gang being led by an assistant superintendent and native chief, and comprise the proper 
number of "clubbers,” “rippers,” and “skinners.” 105 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

David Starr Jordan, and others as a consequence, erroneously characterized Dr. Hugh 
McIntyre’s journey to and role at the Pribilof Islands as a special Treasury agent in 1869. 
Dr. McIntyre’s testimonies above should clarify the record. Jordan wrote: 

In the spring of 1869, Dr. H.H. McIntyre, the representative of the United States 
Government, landed upon the island, establishing the authority of the Government, and 
taking the necessary steps for the protection of the rookeries. 

The period of lawlessness which marked the season of 1868 was thus terminated in 1869 by 
Dr. McIntyre. He was appointed in 1868 and endeavored to reach his destination in the fall 
of that year, but on account of the lateness of the season he was forced to winter at Sitka. 106 

On the contrary, according to McIntyre’s testimony to the Tribunal of Arbitration 
presented previously, McIntyre worked in Washington, D.C. for the Secretary of the 
Treasury. Then in June 1869, McIntyre took a position as a general agent for the ACC. 
It was Captain Charles Bryant, also a special Treasury agent, rather than Dr. McIntyre, 
who served with principal civil authority over the Pribilof Islands beginning in 1869 (see 
Charles Bryant and Henry Wood Elliott biographies). 

Beginning in 1871 and, as best known, ending in 1872, Hugh McIntyre took the first 
known stereographic photographs on the Pribilof Islands. 10 “Could you but know the 
difficulties under which they [photographs] were produced,” he wrote, “you would pro¬ 
nounce them good however bad they may be. The weather does not allow me to work 
more than one day in two weeks.” About taking pictures of fur seals, which is no less 
challenging today, he recalled, “In 1872, I carried a photographer’s camera near the . . . 
rookery on St. Paul Island, and while focusing the instrument with my head under the 
black cloth, and the attention of my attendant was diverted, two old bulls made a savage 
attack upon me, which I avoided by dodging and running. The camera was left where I 
had placed it and could not be recovered until seal clubs had been sent for and one of the 
bulls killed and the other knocked down and stunned.” 

Emma McIntyre wrote several letters to family members in Vermont during her resi¬ 
dence on St. Paul Island. These personal writings offer interesting vignettes into life and 
notable personages on the island at the time. The following was collected for a presenta¬ 
tion by Alaska historian Robert E. King: 


453 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


Mr. [Henry Wood] Elliott is quite a young man and exceedingly free in his manners. 

Was at his ease the moment he entered the house. As far as we can judge by one day’s 
acquaintance he will be a very pleasant addition. He is quite a genius. He has been 
sketching on his trip out. He made a few sketches at Ounalaska and this morning was 
making duplicates on small cards to send back. He painted in water colors three of them in 
an hour or two. Splendidly done too. I was surprised. They are very nicely executed and so 
natural that I recognized everything. He is a naturalist and will get all sorts of specimens 
here. Is stirring early in the morning he says. In fact seems to be a wide-awake jovial 
Yankee. [April 26, 1871] 109 

Emma McIntyre wrote less kindly about Captain Charles Bryant, St. Paul Island 
Treasury Agent-in-Charge, with whom they shared a residence. She referred to him as 
“the conceited old goose,” and “such a boor we have to curb personal dislike in order to 
be very sweet for him, but he brings his wife which I think will in great measure abate our 
trouble with him.” She followed that statement with, “She keeps him decently tidy and 
orders him around a little I think.” 110 

H. H. McIntyre took excerpts from the log book of Captain Alfred N. Tulles, of the 
schooner Angel Dolly , and presented them as a witness before “the House Committee 
on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, Fiftieth Congress, second session, report No. 3883.” 
Treasury Agent George R. Tingle had seized the vessel for violation of the revenue laws 
on July 28, 1887, near Otter Island. Capt. Tulles was reportedly accidentally killed by his 
own hand on that day. The following excerpts represent most but not all of McIntyre’s 
presentation: 

July 4, 1887.—Hove to 30 miles southwest of St. George island. At 1.30 out boats. Got 5 
seals. 

July 5, 1887.—Out boats at 6.30 a.m. Returned at 11.15 p.m. with 11 seals, one boat getting 

6 . 

July 9, 1887.—I am not on the hunting ground, but keep sail on the vessel as we may pick 
up a sleeping seal. 

July 11, 1887.—Caught 7 seals. 

July 13, 1887.—Caught 12 seals; they were around the vessel as thick as bees (the seal). Had 
it been clear we would have caught 100 easy. 

July 16, 1887.—Saw 3 sleeping seals from the vessel. Got boat over and got them. I have not 
seen the sun for nine days, therefore I have had no observations, yet I know that I am not 
over 14 miles from St. George Island. 

July 17, 1887.—Out boats at 10.30. a.m. the seals around the vessel in hundreds. The boats 
would not go any distance from the vessel. Had they gone away they could have caught 200 
or 300 seals. They were afraid of the fog, yet I told them that it would clear up, which it did 
at 3.30 p. m., and continued thus all the rest of the day. They are the hardest set of hunters 
that were ever in Bering Sea, who caught 20 seals and used 250 rounds of ammunition. 

They get 1 out of 10 they fire at. Well, I will never be caught with such a crowd again. The 
head hunter fired 100 shells and got 6 seals. The vessel is lying between the islands of St. 

Paul and St. George. Just as soon as the fog clears off the land I will have to move, as I 
might have the cutter after me. I came here to get a load of seals, and by God, if I had any 
men with me, I would get them, too. They are all a set of curs, genuine one, too. 

July 21, 1887.—Out boats at 6.30 a.m., coming back to vessel at 9 p.m. One boat returned 
at 7 p.m. This was the head hunter. He is out last and first back as always. Caught 30 seals; 
one boat got 14. This is the best day’s work we have done yet. From the amount of growling 
among the boat pullers I conclude that they fired at and missed nearly 200 seals. They had 
100 loaded shells each when they left the ship, and when they came back all were emptied, 
so they did some tall firing. 


454 



Biographies M ♦ McIntyre 


July 23, 1887.—To-day I asl<ed Daniel McCue, boat puller for Charles Loderstrom, how 
it was that his boat got only 9 seals. I told him that I had seen 40 sleeping seals from the 
vessel, and that he must have seen more as he was pulling about. His answer was that if 
he had a man that knew how to shoot, that the boat could not carry all the seals that were 
missed. “Why, Captain,” he said, “it is enough to discourage a man. You pull up to a sleeping 
seal to within 10 feet, fire at him and see the shot go 6 feet the other side of him.” I then 
asked J. Linquist, puller for boat two. He said: “Captain, don’t ask me how many we have 
seen, but ask me how many we missed, and I will tell you.” I asked him the above question; 
he said 100.1 now asked Joe Spooner the same questions as above; his answer was, “We 
only want hunters, and we would be going home now with 1,500 skins at the very least.” 

July 24, 1887.—As fine a day as was ever in San Francisco. A flat calm with the sea smooth 
as glass. Got out the boats at 6.30 p.m., coming back at 7.30 with 14 seals. Why, one boat 
with an ordinary hunter could get that many without going 100 yards from the ship. I killed 
2 inside of ten minutes, and it was then nearly dark. 

July 25, 1887.—Nice weather. Out boats at 7 p.m. Came back with 4 seals. Big catch. 

July 26, 1887.—There were thousands of seals around the vessel. I shot and killed 7 from 
the vessel, but only got 1, through the tardiness of the hunters. At 4.30 I put the boats out; 
came back at 7.30 with 1 seal. The water was fairly covered with seals, yet they only caught 
1 . 


The log closes on the 28 th of July, 1887, on which day the captain was killed and his vessel 
seized for violation of revenue laws. 

His signals were: (1) come back to the vessel; (2) want a boat for dead seals; (3) keep near the 
vessel; bad weather or fog; (4) cutter in sight. 

This paper is a transcript of the log book of the schooner Angel Dolly, captured by Mr. Tingle 
in July 1887. 111 


McIntyre, William J. ( 1845-1919) 

Assistant Special Agent, Department of the Treasury 

St. George Island, May 1874-July 1875 and June 1876-September 30, 1876 
St. Paul Island, August 1, 1875-May 28, 1876 

Genealogy 

William J. McIntyre was born in New York in July 1845, to Scottish immigrant par¬ 
ents. Shortly before venturing to the Pribilof Islands, William McIntyre married Emma 
Jane Baker, born on August 13, 1848, to Ashford Baker and Julia A. (Holmes) Baker, in 
Weymouth, Massachusetts (see biography of Emma Jane McIntyre). William and Emma 
Jane had three children: Margarite, Edward, and Julia. Margarite was born on St. George 
Island in August 1874. 112 William McIntyre died in March of 1919. 113 Emma Jane McIntyre 
died November 22, 1944, at Los Angeles, California. 114 

Biographical Sketch 

While living at Centralia, Marion County, Illinois, sixteen-year-old William McIntyre en¬ 
listed as a private in the Union Army, Company F, 11th Infantry, Regiment Illinois. He 
mustered out on July 14, 1865, as a full lieutenant and became a lawyer in 1874. By 1892, 
he had built a home on Olivewood Avenue in Riverside, California. He became promi¬ 
nent as a lawyer in California. 


455 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

William McIntyre arrived at St. George Island on May 11,1874, with his wife, Emma, who 
was seven months pregnant. 

In the absence of Agent Samuel Falconer, McIntyre assumed charge of St. George 
Island during the winter months of 1874-1875. A month after the birth of Margarite, 
William McIntyre dealt with pelagic sealers working from the schooner Cygnet sailing out 
of Santa Barbara, California. He reported the incident March 15,1875, to the Secretary of 
the Treasury as part of his 1874 yearly report. 

Sir: On the 1st of September last, the natives reported that the crew of the otter-hunting 
schooner Cygnet were shooting seals from the deck of the vessel, as she lay at anchor in 
Zapadnee Bay, five miles from the village. When a seal was killed they would lower a boat, 
take it on board, and, after skinning it, would throw the carcass overboard. I immediately 
sent a party of natives to watch the Cygnet, and ascertain, if possible, how many seals were 
killed, and also sent a letter to the captain of the vessel, informing him that his actions were 
illegal and that he must leave these shores at once. As there were no boats on the south side 
of the island, signals were made for a boat from the Cygnet to come ashore. 

The next day the natives informed me that the signals were unanswered and that no 
communication was had with the vessel; that the crew had lowered two boats, and were 
killing seals in the water, under the cliff near the rookery, and that the seals were evidently 
much alarmed, as they were leaving the breeding and hauling grounds, and were taking to 
the water in great numbers. A heavy sea was running on the north side of the island, and 
the breakers rendered it extremely hazardous to launch the whale-boat and sail around 
the island to South-west Bay, and, as the natives are poor sailors, I did not deem it prudent 
to make the attempt. Still, I wished to give the captain of the vessel timely warning before 
proceeding to any harsh measures. (I had armed the natives, with the intention of repelling 
by force any attempts to kill seals on the rookeries or within rifle-shot of the shore, if 
the crew still persisted in doing so after the receipt of my letter by the captain.) I had the 
natives carry one of their bydarkies across the island to Zapadnee and sent the letter before 
referred to, and also requested an interview with the captain on the beach, which he at 
once granted. 

Captain Kimberly was very much astonished when informed that he was violating the laws 
of the United States; acknowledged that he had been killing seals, but maintained that the 
jurisdiction of the Government did not extend to the waters of Behring Sea, but only over 
the Pribyloff Islands. I informed him that the phraseology of the act approved July 1, 1870, 
was quite plain and there was no mistaking its meaning; that the second section of said act 
provides *** “that it shall be unlawful to kill any seal in the water adjacent to said islands, 
or on the beaches, cliffs, or rocks where they haul up from the sea to remain; and any 
person who shall violate either of the provisions of this or the first section of this act shall 
be punished, on conviction thereof, for each offense by a fine of not less than two hundred 
dollars nor more than one thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding six months, 
or by such fine and imprisonment both, at the discretion of the court having jurisdiction 
and taking cognizance of the offense; and all vessels, their tackle, apparel, and furniture, 
whose crew shall be found engaged in the violation of any of the provisions of this act, shall 
be forfeited to the United States.” 

He replied that, if that was the law, of course he had violated it, but had done so innocently; 
that he was engaged in otter-hunting, and had at that time two hundred skins on board; 
that he was looking for a kelp-patch to the west of the island, where he expected to find 
otter in abundance, and was only waiting for calm weather, so that he could hunt them in 
small boats, and that he had not fitted out for any purpose other than otter-hunting. In 
reply to the inquiry as to why he had not answered my signals and sent a boat ashore, he 
replied that he supposed they were made by the natives, prompted either by motives of 


456 





Biographies M ♦ McIntyre 


trade or curiosity, and therefore paid no attention to them; had he known that they were 
made by white men he should have sent a boat ashore at once. 

I informed Captain Kimberly that he must return to me the skins of all the seals he had 
killed and leave the shores of this island at once. The natives reported that he had killed 
thirty-four seals, but Captain Kimberly said that he had killed thirty-five, and would 
bring them ashore at once, which he did. These skins I salted and stored in the company’s 
magazine at Zapadnee, where I supposed they would be perfectly safe; but the foxes 
effected an entrance into the salt-house by digging under the floor and destroyed every one 
of them. It may be proper, however, to state that these skins were deemed stagey by the 
company s agent, or I should have turned them in to the company, to be included in this 
year’s quota. The Cygnet left that same afternoon, September 2, 1874, and has not been 
seen in these waters since. The captain’s full name is Samuel Kimberly, and the second 
officer’s Cannon; the latter was engaged in sealing on this island in 1868. 

I am, very respectfully, yours, 

wm. j. mcintyre 

Assistant Treasury Agent, St. George, Alaska Ter. 115 

In addition to his statement about pelagic sealers, McIntyre wrote about general con¬ 
ditions on St. George during 1874-1875: 

There has been a great deal of sickness on the island during the past winter. At one time 
it seemed as if every one on the village was down with sickness. From the 8th of August 
up to the date of this report [March 1875] there have been nine deaths and only four 
births. Among the deaths three were grown people and the remainder were children. Only 
one accident occurred during the winter, and that was occasioned through carelessness 
in handling a gun, the charge of which passed through the native’s hand, necessitating 
amputation at the wrist.... The school has been kept open in accordance with law; 
the average daily attendance was eleven, and the progress of the scholars has been very 
flattering.... I have had the Government house thoroughly, cleaned, papered, and painted 
both inside and out with two coats; the inside I painted white and the outside a very pretty 
brown, with white trimmings. I have also painted the fence a light brown. In the fall I 
banked the foundations up to the woodwork. A new floor is necessary for the office and 
large rooms; the old floor is badly worn, and has shrunk a great deal, and I have to request 
that you authorize me to put down a new floor during the fall or winter; a new stove is also 
wanted, and a new carpet and double bedstead; these are the only additional improvements 
necessary at present. I considered the repairs made this spring absolutely necessary for 
the proper preservation of the property. The following is the meteorological record for the 
twelve months ending April, 1875: 

[Authors’ note: the average monthly temperatures are very likely juxtaposed, as the 
summer temperatures as given are lower than the winter temperatures.] 


Months 

Average Monthly 
Temperature 

Months 

Average Monthly 
Temperature 

May 

40.22 above zero 

November 

42.20 above zero 

June 

33.2 above zero 

December 

47.9 above zero 

July 

36.11 above zero 

January 

49.7 above zero 

August 

37.3 above zero 

February 

52.9 above zero 

September 

32.25 above zero 

March 

49 above zero 

October 

32.26 above zero 

April 

40 above zero 


... I respectfully request to be furnished with a copy of the lease and all acts of Congress 
pertaining to the seal-islands, and any other information pertinent thereto. 116 


457 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


Agent Charles Bryant objected to Assistant Agent William McIntyre’s renovations 
to the Treasury agent’s house and fence on St. George Island, since he had not been au¬ 
thorized to spend funds for that purpose. Although Bryant was satisfied with McIntyre’s 
overall management of St. George Island, he had received complaints about McIntyre’s 
treatment of a Native’s eight-year-old son who failed to attend the English school. The 
boy’s father wanted to instruct his son in Russian at home rather than sending him to the 
English school. 117 

Assistant Agent William McIntyre was assigned to St. Paul Island for the winter 
months of 1875-76 and worked with Agent George Marston, who stepped in when 
Charles Bryant suddenly departed the island, with some minor adversarial incidents (see 
Marston’s biography). McIntyre returned to St. George Island during the spring of 1876, 
and resigned from service effective that fall, September 30, 1876. 118 He was replaced by 
George Marston. 


McMillin, Lee Carroll (1895-1945) 

Storekeeper, St. Paul Island, 1924-1928 

Agent, U.S. Department of Commerce, St. George Island, 1935-1939 and St. Paul Island, 
Agent, 1939-1943 

Genealogy 

Lee Carroll McMillin was born in Seattle, Washington, on January 31, 1895, and was 
educated in the local schools. By 1920, Lee McMillin had married a local woman named 
Dorothy (family name unknown; born 1898, died 1978), who accompanied him to the 
Pribilof Islands. Lee McMillin died in Seattle on September 5, 1945. 119 

Biographical Sketch 

When the World War I draft registration took place in 1917, Lee McMillin was living in 
Kent, Washington, working as a shipping clerk for the American Paper Company. Since 
the death of his parents, he had assumed responsibility for raising his two younger sib¬ 
lings. 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

The McMillins were listed in the 1929 census of St. Paul Island, where Lee McMillin was 
working as a storekeeper. 


458 






Biographies M ♦ McIntyre - Meilbronner 



Left to right: Lee McMillin, George Merculief, 
and Purl Manderville with octopus. Pribilof 
Islands, circa 1939. (Courtesy William 
Manderville, SG179.) 


Wives of agents: Dorothy McMillin (left) and Esther 
Manderville (right), Pribilof Islands, circa 1939. 
(Courtesy William Manderville, SG140.) 


Meilbronner, Max 

Secretary, Alaska Commercial Company, 1873-1889 
Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Max Meilbronner’s deposition for the Tribunal of Arbitration on May 6 , 1892, before 
Notary Public Clement Bennett at San Francisco, California, is excerpted here: 

I am secretary of the Alaska Commercial Company, and as such have in my custody all 
record books of the Company; and among them the daily records or “log book” kept by the 
agents of the Company on St. George Island from 1873 to 1889, inclusive, and on St. Paul 
Island from 1876 to 1889, inclusive.... The reports of the superintendent for the lessees 
show that it was the custom of the Company’s agents on the islands to frequently patrol 
the rookeries whenever the weather was such that a landing could be effected on them, and 
to keep watchmen at points distant from the villages, whose special duty it was to report 
every unusual or suspicious occurrence. For this purpose the northeast point of St. Paul 
Island was connected with the village by telephone in 1880, a distance of 12 miles, and the 
natives instructed in the use of the instrument. 120 


459 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


Mendenhall, Thomas Corwin (1841-1924) 

Naturalist 

Bering Sea Commissioner, Fur-Seal Investigation, 1891-1892 
Genealogy 

Thomas Corwin Mendenhall was born October 4, 1841, at Hanoverton, Ohio, the son of 
Stephan and Mary (Thomas) Mendenhall. 121 

Biographical Sketch 

Thomas C. Mendenhall grew up in Ohio. At the age of sixteen he began to teach school and 
in 1873 became a professor of physics and mechanics at Ohio State University. In 1878, he 
was a professor at the Imperial University of Japan and Director of the Observatory; he 
returned in 1881 to Ohio State as a professor of physics. In 1884, he joined the Weather 
Bureau, then within the Army Signal Corps, as a professor of electricity. In 1888, President 
Benjamin Harrison named Mendenhall Superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic 
Survey. Mendenhall became president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, 
Massachusetts, in 1894. 122 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Thomas C. Mendenhall investigated the biology and ecology of the northern fur seal 
as one of several commissioners appointed to the Bering Sea Commission by President 
Benjamin Harrison. See the biography of Clinton Hart Merriam for additional informa¬ 
tion regarding Mendenhall’s Pribilof Islands experience. 


Merculoff (Merculioff), Evan (b. 1876) 

Resident, St. George Island 
Genealogy 

Evan Merculoff (aka Merculioff) was born on January 31, 1876 to Sevestian Merculoff 
(aka Sebastian) and Wasilisia (aka Valissia, unknown surname), 123 who were born on St. 
George Island in 1834 and 1851, respectively. 124 Sevestian Merculoff died at St. George 
Island, September 15, 1889. 125 Sevestian and Wasilisia Merculoff had five children: Evan, 
Alexandra, Nicoli, Evdokia, and Helena. 126 Evan Merculoff married Natilia Ladoshnikoff 
(born September 7, 1880, St. Paul Island, Alaska) on August 28, 1898, at St. Paul Island. 127 

Biographical Sketch 

From the 1893 St. George Island Agent’s Log: “Evan Merculoff, son of Sovestian (de¬ 
ceased) and mother Wassaliesa Merculoff, shall be recognized as the head of his mother’s 
family, and orders for supplies for the family shall be issued to him.” 128 


460 








Merculoff, Joseph (b. 1872) 

Resident, St. George Island 
Biographical Sketch 


Biographies M ♦ Mendenhall - Merkul’iev 


Also from the 1893 St. George Island Agent’s Log: “Joseph Merculoff, a son of Feorania 
[Fevronia] Merculoff, shall be recognized as the head of his mother’s family, and orders 
for supplies for the family shall be issued to him. The mother who serves as laundress at 
the house of the N.A.C. Company must be given a passbook by the Company, and her 
compensation must be entered therein as a credit and not be drawn upon except upon 
written order of the Government Agent in charge.” 129 


Merkul’iev, Vasilii Petrovich (d. 1828) 

Manager of Pribilof Islands Russian-American Company, 1799-1828 (?) 

Genealogy 

Vasilii Petrovich Merkul’iev, a burgher from Tomsk, Russia, married Ekaterina, an Aleut 
woman possibly from Umnak, on July 5,1790. Ekaterina’s name had been bestowed during 
a lay baptism. The marriage took place at a small settlement, Shettaq (or Sheshtaq), on 
Kodiak Island. Vasilii and Ekaterina had two sons, Dmitrii and Iakov. 130 “Vasilii Merkul’iev 
perished with other men in 1828 when their baidara sank in the perilous strait off of 
Akutan Island.” 131 Professor Lydia T. Black suggested that Vasilii Merkul’iev was the an¬ 
cestor to “several prominent Aleut families on both St. George and St. Paul Islands.” 132 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Beginning in 1799, Vasilii Merkul’iev served as the Russian-American Company’s first 
Pribilof Islands manager. He was partly responsible for bringing Natives from the Aleutian 
chain to live and work on the Pribilof Islands. 133 Russian historian Kiril T. Khlebnikov 
wrote about Vasilii Merkul’iev: 

An interesting event occurred with one detachment of Merkul’ev’s [sic] artel in 1799. They 
were planning on sailing from Georgii Island to Pavel Island to hunt in a large baidara with 
42 men on board. Soon after they left the shore they were covered by a thick fog followed 
by strong wind from the northwest which turned into a bitter storm. To lighten the baidara 
they threw all their property into the sea, and with great effort, without food or water, were 
barely able to hold on during the storm, which lasted eight days. Finally they saw the coast 
of North America and landed there. The Aglegmuts [sic] who inhabited that place not only 
did not want to give them food, but seeing that they were exhausted and weak wanted to 
attack and kill them. Under the pretext of promising them food, they called them to come 
to their settlement, but the Russians understood their intention and decided not to give in 
to their false promise, which would lead them to painful death, deciding it would be better 
to drown at sea.... The large baidara under sail quickly drew away from the shore, thereby 
saving the travelers from death. Next day, weak and desperate, they reached Unga Island 
where there were Russian artels of Shelikhov’s company. 134 


461 








Pribilof Islands: The People 


Merriam, Dr. Clinton Hart (1856-1942) 

Naturalist, Founder of U.S. Biological Survey 

Bering Sea Commissioner, Fur-Seal Investigation, 1891-1892 

Genealogy 

Clinton Hart Merriam was born December 
5, 1855, in New York City to Clinton Levi and 
Caroline (Hart) Merriam. Clinton Hart Merriam 
married Virginia Elizabeth Gosnel of West 
Virginia at Berkeley, California, on October 15, 
1886. 135 Virginia Merriam died in 1937; Clinton 
Hart Merriam died March 19, 1942, at Berkeley, 
California. 



Virgina and Clinton Hart Merriam had two 
daughters. One became Mrs. Talbot, whose hus¬ 
band served as director of the research branch of 
the United States Forestry and Range Experiment 
Station in California. The other daughter married 
Henry Abbott of Washington, D.C., the assistant 
to the head of the Soil Conservation Service. 136 


Clinton Hart Merriam. (Library of 
Congress, Ruthven Deane Coll., LC- 
USZ62-986.) 


LMkIM 


Biographical Sketch 

Dr. Clinton Hart Merriam’s remarkable career as a scientist began when he was a twelve- 
year-old collecting insects and birds. He soon graduated to “reptiles, marine invertebrates 
and plants.” 137 Ultimately, his exploration and collecting trips took him to “every state in 
the Union, Alaska and Bermuda.” 138 Like artist Henry Wood Elliott, Merriam participated 
in a Hayden Expedition to Yellowstone—Merriam in 1872 at the age of sixteen, Elliott in 
1870. Both men went on to play important roles on the Pribilof Islands. 

After graduating from Sheffield Scientific School at Yale in 1877, Merriam earned 
a degree from Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. He practiced medicine 
for six years, until 1885, when his irrepressible scientific interests led him to Europe. 
A summons to head the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Division of Ornithology and 
Mammalogy (which became the U.S. Biological Survey, and is now the Fish and Wildlife 
Service) brought him back to the states. After resigning from the Biological Survey in 
1910, he became a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution. In 1917, while 
still working at the Smithsonian, Merriam became the chairman of the U.S. Board on 
Geographic Names, and he also embarked on an ethnographic study of Pacific Coast 
Indians. 139 Merriam produced an exceptional amount of written work and is credited 
with developing the “life zones” concept of mapping the distribution of plants and ani¬ 
mals—a significant contribution to the budding science of ecology. 140 


462 




















Biographies M ♦ Merriam - Miller 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

As head of the U.S. Biological Survey, C. Hart Merriam was part of a scientific team as¬ 
signed to investigate the fur-seal question in preparation for the U.S. position before the 
1893 International Tribunal of Arbitration convened at Paris, France. Other team mem¬ 
bers included Joseph Stanley-Brown and Thomas C. Mendenhall. They sailed aboard the 
U.S. Fish Commission’s Albatross and visited the Pribilof Islands in July and August 1891; 
Merriman also studied the plants of the islands. 141 

Merriman’s record stands as a great individual accomplishment, but he and fellow 
commission member Thomas Mendenhall were criticized for the quality of their assis¬ 
tance to the U.S. case before the Tribunal of Arbitration. An article by Henry W. Elliott in 
The Globe is a lengthy condemnation of the U.S. role in the 

failure on the part of the Bering Sea tribunal of arbitration to prescribe adequate rules 
and regulations for the protection and preservation of the fur-seal herd of Alaska on the 
islands and in the sea. 142 [Merriam and Mendenhall are] two utterly inexperienced men as 
commissioners.... These commissioners did not get into the islands until one week after 
the breeding season had ended (July 29, 1891); they remained there just nine days, and then 
returned direct to Washington; they prepared a report, which erroneously declared that 
all injury to the life of the fur-seal herd was due entirely to the result of pelagic sealing.... 

Then as scientists they stultified themselves. They allowed themselves to be quoted by our 
[U.S.] counsel... as saying in the name of science that the fur seal was not a wild animal; 
that it comported itself in the Pribylov Islands precisely as cattle, swine or sheep do on our 
farms, and that we bear the same relation to it as master and owner. 143 

Although fur-seal expert Victor Scheffer praised Merriam’s and Mendenhall’s ef¬ 
forts many years later, 144 their inadequate participation and that of the U.S. legal team 
compelled Treasury Secretary J. W. Foster to order another, more intensive investigation 
in the Territory of Alaska in 1892. Despite the Secretary’s extra effort, the Tribunal of 
Arbitration issued an award lacking both adequate protective measures and enforcement 
authority, a decision that hastened the diminution of the fur-seal herd. Whether anyone 
in 1891 could have prevailed despite the political intrigues of the period is a question yet 
to be explored (see Blaine and Elkins biographies for additional insights). 

Dr. Merriam returned to the islands July 9, 1899, as part of the Edward Henry 
Harriman expedition exploring Alaskan coastal villages. 145 


Miller, John Franklin (1831-1886) 

Customs Collector, U.S. Department of the Treasury, San Francisco, 1865-1869 

Republican U.S. Senator, 1881-1886 

President, Alaska Commercial Company, 1870-1881 

Genealogy 

John Franklin Miller was born November 21, 1831, in South Bend, Indiana, to William 
and Mary Miller. In 1857, John Miller married Mary Wickerham Chess at South Bend; 
the couple had two children. John Miller died on March 8, 1886, in Washington, D.C. 
John and Mary Miller are buried in Arlington Cemetery, Virginia. 146 


463 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


Biographical Sketch 

From John Franklin Miller’s obituary in the New York Times: 

General Miller was in his fifty-fifth year and a native of Indiana, his parents being 
Virginians by birth. He received an academic education at South Bend and began the 
study of law in 1849, graduating from the New York Law School three years later. He then 
returned to South Bend and began to practice, but in 1863 he left Indiana and went to 
California, where he opened a law office in Napa, practicing there and in San Francisco. 

He remained on the Pacific slope only three years when he returned to his native State and 
resumed the practice of his profession. He was a member of the Indiana State Senate in 
1860, but resigned his seat on the outbreak of the war to take a position on Gov. Morton’s 
staff, with the rank of Colonel... he was brevetted Major General [1865]. At the close of 
the war he was offered a commission in the regular army, but declined a reappointment 
and devoted himself to building up a commercial business [Alaska Commercial Company] 
in which he made a large fortune. He was a Republican candidate for Presidential Elector 
in 1872, 1878, 1880, a member of the State Constitutional Convention in 1879, and was 
elected to the United States Senate as a Republican to succeed Newton Booth, taking his 
seat March 4, 1881. 147 



JOHN F. MILLER 

President 1870-1881 

General in United States Army, serving with 
Grant during the Rebellion; elected U. S. Senator, 
and died in office. 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

When John Franklin Miller agreed to the presi¬ 
dency of the newly formed Alaska Commercial 
Company in 1870, he was already a successful 
lawyer with a distinguished military record. His 
legal expertise and four years experience as a cus¬ 
toms collector in San Francisco equipped him 
to head a company destined to become one of 
the world’s leading suppliers of furs. By the time 
he left the ACC for the U.S. Senate in 1881, he 
and those invested in the company had become 
wealthy men. 

Miller aggressively pursued control of the 
Pribilof Islands fur industry. As a result, the ACC 
wound up paying twice as much into the feder¬ 
al treasury coffers as expected under their lease 
with the government. 148 The following were offi¬ 
cers and stockholders of the Alaska Commercial 
Company in 1870: 


John F. Miller, President of the Alaska 
Commercial Company (1870-1881). 
(Samuel P. Johnston, 1940.) 


464 







Biographies M ♦ Miller 


Officers:-John F. Miller, president; Richard H. Chapell, vice-president; H.M. Hutchinson, 
secretary. 

rrustees:-Henry P. Haven, Louis Sloss, H.M. Hutchinson, John F. Miller, Richard H. Chapell 

Stockholders:-John Parrott, H.P. Haven, H.M. Hutchinson, R.H. Chapell, Thomas Hood, 
C.A. Williams, G. Niebaum, Louis Sloss, August Wassermann, Lewis Gerstle, John F. 

Miller, L. Roscowitz, William Kohl, S.J. Field. 

I hereby certify that the foregoing is an accurate list of the officers and stockholders of the 
Alaska Commercial Company on the 28th day of July, 1870. 

John F. Miller, President Alaska Commercial Company 149 


Miller, Norman Briscoe “N. B.” (1849-1897) 

Assistant Naturalist and Photographer and U.S. Fish Commission steamer Albatross, 
1882-1897 

Genealogy 

Norman Briscoe Miller was born in 1849 in the Shenandoah Valley’s Berkeley County, 
Virginia (now West Virginia). Norman Briscoe was the firstborn son of Norman Miller, a 
local Martinsburg lawyer, and Juliet Baker (Briscoe) Miller, the daughter of Major Thomas 
Briscoe and Juliet Wood (Hite) Briscoe. Norman Miller died in San Diego, California, on 
April 2, 1897 and was buried at San Diego’s Mt. Hope Cemetery. 150 

Biographical Sketch 

Norman Miller studied science as a young man and became a druggist in Washington, 
D.C., in 1880. At that time, he resided in Washington with his wife, Annie, and their one- 
year-old daughter, Juliet. He later made his home in Oakland, California, while working 
with the U.S. Fish Commission. 151 “Mr. Miller had been with the fish commission fifteen 
years, and joined the Albatross when she was first commissioned fourteen years ago. He 
came around the Horn on the Albatross and was a zealous worker in his chosen field, 
making many important discoveries in marine life on all the coasts of the Pacific.” 152 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Norman Briscoe Miller is best known for his photographs of the Pribilof Islands —land¬ 
scapes, seal rookeries, and pelagic sealers. His photographs bearing the “NBM” signa¬ 
ture were shot during the 1890s while he was working as laboratory assistant to Charles 
Townsend aboard the research steamer Albatross. 


465 








St. George Village, St. George Island, circa 1890. (Univ of Washington 
Libraries, Special Collections Division. Photo: N. B. Miller. PH Coll. 
NA3046.) 



St. Paul Village with shallow lake in foreground. During this time period 
and earlier, the lake was used to cool off fur seals following long drives from 
various rookeries before the seals were killed on a nearby killing ground. St. 
Paul Island, circa 1890. (Univ of Washington Libraries, Special Collections 
Division. Photo: N. B. Miller. PH Coll. 595.4.) 


466 

























Biographies M ♦ Miller - Milotte 



St. Paul Village, St. Paul Island, circa 1895. (Univ of Washington Libraries, 

Special Collections Division. Photo: N. B. Miller. PH Coll. 595.2.) 

Milotte, Alfred George and Elma Moore Jolly 
(1904-1989 and 1907-1989) 

Award-Winning Cinematographers, Disney film Seal Island 
Genealogy 

Alfred George Milotte was born November 24, 1904, in Appleton, Wisconsin, son of 
Alphonse E. and Ivy P. Milotte. Alfred Milotte and Elma Moore Jolly were married on June 
15, 1934, in Ketchikan, Alaska. Elma was born in Seattle July 1, 1907, daughter of Elmer 
and Eva Jolly of Puyallup, Washington. 153 Alfred and Elma died five days apart, she on 
April 19, 1989, in Puyallup, Washington, and he on April 24 at Gig Harbor, Washington. 154 

Biographical Sketch 

Alfred Milotte received his education in Seattle and attended the University of Washington 
and Cornish Art School (Cornish College of Arts). He also studied at the Art Institute of 
Chicago and the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. Elma graduated from the University of 
Washington in 1930 with a degree in education. The two began their film career in Alaska 
during the 1930s, working out of their photographic studio in Ketchikan, Alaska. Alfred 
“worked as a commercial artist and lecturer in Alaska and produced war and educational 
films during the late 1930’s and early 1940’s.” 155 The couple “lectured and showed films on 
Alaska for many years until Walt Disney happened to see some of their work. Without any 
specific projects in mind, Disney hired them to film the Alaska wilderness.” 156 Alfred and 


467 


















Pribilof Islands: The People 


Elma maintained an eleven-year association with Disney, shooting wilderness locations 
in Alaska, Florida, Africa, and Australia. Their first film, Seal Island, won an Academy 
Award in 1948 for best short subject documentary (Film; Winston Hibler, producer, and 
James Algar, director; Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Studios, 1948). That success, along with 
the couple’s subsequent Academy Award-winning Alaskan Eskimo, led Disney to send 
the Milotte film team to Africa and Australia, trips that resulted in “the theatrical motion 
pictures The African Lion and Nature’s Strangest Creatures, as well as several television 
productions. Cameras in Africa was the personal story of the Milottes with an introduc¬ 
tion by Walt Disney.” 157 In all, the Millotes won six Academy Awards for documentary 
and short subject nature films. Alfred Milotte also illustrated a number of Disney nature 
books and wrote several children’s books. 158 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

In August of 1947, “Alfred and Elma shot more than 15,000 feet of 16mm Kodachrome, 
which Walt is thinking of editing into a two-reeler now tentatively titled, ‘Seal Island’” 159 
Seal Island was filmed on location in the Pribilofs and depicted the life cycle of the north¬ 
ern fur seal in its natural habitat, along with the islands’ abundant bird and plant life. The 
two-reel, twenty-seven-minute documentary was produced and narrated by Winston 
Hibler (1910-1976), animated by James N. Algar (1912-1998), written by Jack Jungmeyer 
(1883-1961), and edited by Anthony Gerard (1895-1987). Seal Island was Disney’s first 
true-life nature film and the first in his television series “True Life Adventures,” which ran 
circa 1950-1960. 160 As previously noted, Seal Island won an Oscar in 1948. 


Milovidov, Alexander (1821-1870) 

Russian-American Company, Manager, ca. 1860-1867 
Chief, St. Paul Island, 1867-1870 

An expanded genealogy and biographical sketch of the Milovidov (Melovidov) family, in¬ 
cluding Anton and Simeon as well as Alexander is presented in the “First Three Managers” 
section of this volume. 


Misikin, John (b. 1889) 

Cook, Church Custodian and Leader of the Civil Rights Movement on St. Paul Island 
Genealogy 

John Misikin was born on September 26, 1889 on St. Paul Island, Alaska. He married 
Natalia, born September 9, 1886, Unalaska, Alaska. John and Natalia Misikin had two 
children, Victor, born September 29, 1908, and Anna, born February 9, 1910, both born 
on St. Paul Island, Alaska. 


468 





Biographies M ♦ Milotte - Misikin 



John Misikin among a group of men gathered in front of the Carpenter’s Shop in the village on St. Paul 
Island. The group includes (1) John Misikin, (2) Elary Gromoff, (3) Paul Tetoff, (4) Alfey Melovidov, 

(5) Zachar Tetoff, (6) Joe Melovidov, (7) Simeon Nozekoff, (8) Metrofan Krukof, (9) Ted Kochutin, 

(10) Dmitri Oustigoff, (11) Vasily Stepetin, (12) Innokenty Kochutin, (13) Karp Buterin, (14) Edward 
Johnston, (15) Father Gregory Prozorov, and (16) Jacob Kuchutin. (Fredericka Martin Photograph 
Coll., 91-223-184, Archives, Alaska and Polar Regions Coll., Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska 
Fairbanks.) 


Biographical Sketch 161 

John Misikin was one of several Aleut leaders on the Pribilof Islands from the 1920s until 
the 1950s who were involved in the effort to gain the Natives’ inherent civil rights as citi¬ 
zens of the United States. Misikin participated in surreptitious meetings during the late 
forties to plan the strategy for the Pribilovians’ quest for freedom. The islanders looked 
up to Misikin and other leaders for their knowledge, intelligence, and leadership abili¬ 
ties. Misikin is one of five men portrayed in a painting now hanging in the St. Paul City 
Council chambers. The portrait was commissioned by former St. Paul City Mayor Larry 
Merculieff. 

John Misikin served as the custodian of St. Paul Island Orthodox Church for decades 
and was the cook for government personnel staying at the Company House, as it was 
known locally. The Company House became the King Eider Hotel after the government 
withdrew from administration of the islands in 1983. 162 

John Misikin’s son, Victor, became the local government foreman and was notorious 
among many of the local people for being a hard driver. 163 


469 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


Morgan, Norman Daniel (1885-1955) 

Physician, St. Paul Island, 1910-1911 


Genealogy 

Norman D. Morgan was born in San Francisco 
on December 9, 1885, the son of Daniel Morgan, 
a native of Guysborough County, Nova Scotia, 
Canada, who had immigrated to San Francisco 
in 1870. However, Norman was raised by William 
M. Morgan and Elizabeth E. (Herlihy) Morgan, 
who became known as his parents. Norman 
Morgan first married in 1917, to Elizabeth 
Gertrude Blanchard, who was born in Hanford, 
California, on August 12, 1879. After her death in 
1930, Norman married Margaret Ahern, daugh¬ 
ter of Thomas and Ann Ahern. 164 

Biographical Sketch and Pribilof Islands 
Experience 

Norman Morgan attended San Francisco’s public 
schools. In 1910, he received the degree of doctor 
of medicine from Cooper Medical College, now 
part of Stanford University. 

Dr. Morgan entered the United States Army as a contract surgeon, in which capacity he 
served for one year. This led to an advancement to the position of surgeon in the army, 
with an assignment to the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea off Alaska, where he remained 
during the year 1912 [sic; 1910-1911], He then returned to San Francisco, having been 
honorably discharged from the military service, and here took up his private practice, 
specializing in surgical work.... During the period when the United States was engaged 
in the World war [World War I], Dr. Morgan was overseas for eighteen months in the 
French war zone, and at the time of his honorable discharge he held the rank of major 
in the medical corps. After the close of the war, he received a special degree from the 
London Hospital in recognition of his valuable services in surgery. He is also a Fellow of 
the American College of Surgeons. Dr. Morgan is now a member of the veterans’ medical 
board of the Spanish-American War Veterans. 165 



DR. NORMAN D. MORGAN 


Norman Daniel Morgan. (Lewis 
Francis Byington, ed .,The History of San 
Francisco, 461.) 


Morgan, Thomas F. (b. 1848) 

Sealer, Captain, and Ship Owner 
Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

The only information acquired for Thomas F. Morgan came from his deposition for the 
Tribunal of Arbitration in 1892. Morgan deposed at least twice before Notary Public 
Sevellon A. Brown at Washington, D.C., both times on April 5, 1892: 


470 













Biographies M ♦ Morgan - Morton 


I am 44 years of age and reside in the town of Groton, Conn. In 1886,1 shipped as second 
mate of the bark Peru, owned by the firm of William [s] & Haven, of the city of New 
London, Conn., which vessel was commanded by my father, Capt. Ebenezer Morgan, and 
sailed on that bark from Honolulu about the 27th day of February, 1868, for the purpose 
of catching seals on the islands in Bering Sea, Williams & Haven having for many years 
been engaged in seal fisheries, and being, so far as I know, the largest firm in the United 
States engaged in that business. We sailed to the port of Sitka and there supplied to the 
commander, Gen. Jefferson C. Davis, for permission to land the cargo of the bark on the 
Pribilof Islands and take seals on those islands. At the end of the season I remained on the 
island of St. Paul, one of the said Pribilof Islands, until August, 1869, as a representative of 
Williams & Haven’s interest in and about said island. In the last mentioned year I returned 
to this country, and, at the request of the Alaska Commercial Company, of which Williams 
& Haven were stockholders, I was employed in the year 1874 to return to the Pribilof 
Islands as a representative of said Alaska Commercial Company. 

In pursuance of such request I returned to the island as agent of said last-mentioned 
company in charge of the island of St. George, which with the islands of St. Paul, Otter, 
and Walrus, constitute the group known as the Pribilof Islands. I arrived at said island 
some time in May, 1874; took up my residence there, and remained in my capacity of 
agent in and about that island during each sealing season thereafter until the year 1887. 

At the expiration of the sealing season of 1887,1 returned to the United States, and in 
1891, was engaged by the Russian Sealskin Company, of St. Petersburg, as chief agent of 
that company, to proceed to the islands of Komandorski, consisting of Copper and Bering 
Islands, commonly called the Commander Islands.... 

On my first arrival in the Pribilof Islands in 1868, several other vessels, representatives 
of different interests, were there for the purpose of killing seals; and the natives of these 
islands, called Aleuts, were nearly all employed by one or other of the vessels in the 
business of killing seals. I noticed that the natives always remonstrated whenever any 
female was killed and stated that that was forbidden, and I am informed that it always had 
been forbidden by the Russian Government.... My knowledge of the catch of 1868 enables 
me to state that the destruction of seals from all sources in that year was about 240,000. 166 


Morton, John M. (1846-1900) 

Agent, Alaska Commercial Company, St. Paul Island, 1869-1876 
Agent-in-Charge, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. Paul Island, 1877-1878 167 
Special Agent, St. Paul Island, 1881-1884, summers 1890-1900 

Genealogy 

The St. Paul Island Agent’s Log offered the following obituary for Agent-in-Charge John 
M. Morton. 

Death of special agent in charge of the seal fisheries of Alaska, July 15, 1900. Mr. John M. 

Morton, born in Indiana, son of Oliver P. Morton the famous War Governor of that state. 

His mother still lives and a wife and two children. Mr. Morton 1st came here in the early 
seventies. As an agent in charge he has had few peers on these Islands and no supervisors. 

Buried near Dr. Voss and Edward Hughes-Mrs. Morton arrived August 25, 1900, 

Morton’s remains to be shipped to Indianapolis. 168 


471 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

John Morton deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration on May 11, 1892, before Notary 
Public Clement Bennett at San Francisco, California. The following is from his deposi¬ 
tion. 


I am United States shipping commissioner at San Francisco. The Alaska Commercial 
Company obtained the lease of the seal islands in 1869 [1870]. In the fall of that year I went 
to Alaska on the steamer Constantine as an agent of said company, arriving at St. Paul 
Island in October, where I remained until the close of the sealing season in the following 
year. During the summer of 1872,1 visited all of the trading posts of the company, both on 
the mainland of Alaska and the various islands, thus spending the entire summer in Bering 
Sea. This trip was extended to Copper and Bering islands, belonging to the Russians, and 
of which members of the Alaska Commercial Company had control at that time, and to 
Petropaulovski in Kamchatka. In the course of our voyage in 1872, we touched twice at the 
seal islands of Alaska, spending there altogether, perhaps, a week or ten days. During our 
stay at St. Paul this year, I visited (in July) most of the rookeries and hauling grounds of the 
fur-seals. 

The summer of 1873 I spent on St. George, and while there my business called me 
frequently to the various portions of the island where the seals were accustomed to 
congregate.... In 1875 and again in 1876 I went north, spending both seasons on St. Paul 
Island. I resigned my position with the Alaska Commercial Company in the fall of 1876, but 
in the spring of 1877 I was appointed to the position of Treasury agent at the seal islands 
(in charge), and entered upon the discharge of my official duties in May of that year. 169 


Moulton, Jacob H. (b. 1836) 

Assistant Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. George Island, 1877-1885 
Assistant Agent, St. Paul Island, summers 1881-1884 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Jacob H. Moulton of Bowdoinham, Maine, stated as follows on April 16, 1892, before 
Notary Public Sevellon A. Brown at Washington, D.C., in his deposition for the Tribunal 
of Arbitration: 

I am 56 years of age, and my occupation is farming. From 1877 to 1885,1 was first, assistant 
Treasury agent on the seal islands. I arrived on St. George Island May 21, 1877, and left the 
islands in the fall of 1884.1 spent four summers on St. George Island, and one winter, from 
1877 to 1881, and four summers and four winters on St. Paul Island, from 1881 to 1884. 170 


Muir, John (1838-1914) 

Naturalist, Geologist, and Explorer 
Genealogy 

John Muir was born April 21, 1838, at Dunbar, Scotland, son of Daniel Muir and Ann 
(Gilrye) Muir. John Muir married Louisa Wanda Strentzel, daughter of John Theophile 
Strentzel and Louisiana (Erwin) Strentzel, on April 14,1880, at Martinez, California. John 


472 






Biographies M ♦ Morton - Muir 


and Louisa Muir had two daughters, Annie Wanda Muir and Helen Lillian Muir. John 
Muir died on December 24, 1914, at Los Angeles, California. 171 

Biographical Sketch 

[In 1849, the Muir family] immigrated to the United States and settled near the Fox 
River in Wisconsin. John helped to clear the land, worked on the farm and attended the 
University of Wisconsin, 1860-1864, paying his tuition with money earned by farming 
and school teaching. He made extended botanical and geological excursions in Wisconsin, 

Indiana, Michigan and Canada and in the southern states ... in 1868 visited the Yosemite 
Valley, California, exploring and examining its flora and fauna. He lived an isolated life in 
the Sierra Nevada mountains for ten years, exploring the glacial formations; was a member 
of an exploring expedition connected with the geodetic survey in the Great Basin, 1876-79; 
made several trips to the northwest region, and while in Alaska discovered the Glacier bay 
and the great Glacier which bears his name. He also made a trip to the headwaters of the 
Yukon and McKenzie rivers, and in 1881 was connected with one of the expeditions to 
search for the lost Jeannette expedition. The honorary degree of A.M. was conferred on 
him by Harvard in 1896 and that of LL.D. by the Wisconsin State University in 1897. He 
edited and contributed to Picturesque California, contributed many articles on geological 
and botanical subjects to the leading magazines and is the author of: The Mountains of 
California (1894), and Our National Parks (1901). 172 

John Muir founded the Sierra Club. 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

United States Treasury Agent Harrison Gray Otis wrote about the arrival of the Revenue 
Cutter Corwin, which carried some esteemed guests to St. Paul Island on May 23, 1881. 

About 1 p.m. the U.S. Revenue Cutter “Thomas Corwin,” from San Francisco May 4, and 
Ounalaska May 22, arrived, anchored on the west side, and was boarded by the agents. 

Capt. Hooper, commanding, came ashore with several of his officers bringing newspaper 
files for April. After procuring from the A.C. Co. some 330 pup-seal skins (in blankets) for 
use in his expected Arctic expedition, he set sail from the East side about 7:30 p.m. and 
bore away to the northward. 173 

Among the members of the Corwin expedition was naturalist John Muir, who gave 
his impressions of the Pribilof Islands in his book Cruise of the Corwin: 

St. Paul, Alaska, May 23, 1881 

About four o’clock yesterday morning the Corwin left Unalaska, and arrived at St. Paul 
shortly after noon to-day, the distance being about one hundred and ninety miles. This 
is the metropolis of the Fur Seal Islands, situated on the island of St. Paul—a handsome 
village of sixty-four neat frame cottages, with a large church, schoolhouse, and priest’s 
residence, and a population of nearly three hundred Aleuts, and from twelve to twenty 
whites. 

It is interesting to find here an isolated group of Alaskan natives wholly under white 
influence and control, and who have a great part abandoned their own pursuits, clothing, 
and mode of life in general, and adopted that of the whites. They are all employed by the 
Alaska Commercial Company as butchers, to kill and flay the hundred thousand seals that 
they take annually here and at the neighboring island of St. George. Their bloody work lasts 
about two months, and they earn in this time from three hundred to six hundred dollars 
apiece, being paid forty cents per skin. 

The Company supplies them with a school, medical attendance, and comfortable dwellings, 
and looks after their welfare in general, its own interest being involved. They even have a 


473 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


bank, and are encouraged to save their money, which many of them do, having accounts 
of from two hundred to three thousand dollars. Fortunately, the Aleuts of St. Paul and 
St. George are pretty effectively guarded against whiskey and to some extent against 
kvass also. Only limited quantities of sugar and other kvass material are sold to them. 
Nevertheless one of their number told one of our officers to-day that he had a bank account 
of eight hundred dollars and would give it all for five bottles of whiskey; and an agent of the 
Company gave it as his opinion that there were not six perfectly sober Aleuts on the whole 
island to-day. 

The number of fur seals that resort to these two islands, St. Paul and St. George, during the 
breeding season, is estimated at from three to four million, and there seems to be no falling 
off in numbers since the Alaska Commercial Company began operations here. Only young 
males are killed by the Company, but many of both sexes are taken far from here among 
the Aleutian Islands and around the shores of Vancouver Island and the outermost of the 
Alexander Archipelago. 

No one knows certainly whence they come or whither they go. But inasmuch as they make 
their appearance every year about the shores of the Aleutian Islands shortly after their 
disappearance from St. Paul and St. George, and then later to the southward, toward the 
coast to British Columbia, it is supposed that they are the same animals, and that they thus 
make journeys every year of a thousand miles or more, and return to their birthplaces like 
shoals of salmon. They begin to appear on the breeding-grounds about the first of June. 
These are old males, who at once take up their stations on high ground a short distance 
from the shore, and keep possession of their places while they await the coming of the 
pregnant females who arrive about a month later, accompanied by the younger members 
of the community. At the height of the season the ground is closely covered with them, and 
they seldom go back into the water or take any food until the young are well grown and all 
are ready to leave the islands in the fall. 

In addition to the one hundred thousand taken here, the Company obtains about forty 
thousand by purchase from the Russians at Bering and Copper Islands, and from Indians 
and traders at different points south as far as Oregon. These skins are said to be worth 
fifteen dollars apiece in the London market, to which they are all sent. The government 
revenue derived from the one hundred thousand killed each year is $317,000. 

Next in importance among the fur animals of Alaska, is the sea-otter, of which about six 
thousand a year are taken, worth from eighty dollars to one hundred dollars apiece. 

The Aleuts obtain from thirty to fifty dollars in goods or money, an alternative not due to 
the fact that the goods are sold for their money value, but to the fact that the traders sooner 
or later receive back whatever money they pay out instead of goods. Unlimited competition 
would, of course, run the price much higher, as, for example, it has done in south-eastern 
Alaska. Here the only competition lies between the Western Fur and Trading Company 
and the Alaska Commercial Company. The latter gets most of them. Each company seeks 
the good-will of the best hunters by every means in its power, by taking them to and 
from the hunting grounds in schooners, by advancing provisions and all sorts of supplies, 
by building cottages for them, and supplying them with the services of a physician and 
medicine free. Only Indians are allowed by law to take furs, and whites married to Indian 
women. This law had induced some fifteen white men to marry Indians for the privilege of 
taking sea-otter. They have settled at Unga Island, one of the Shumagin group, where there 
is a village of some hundred and eighty-five Indians. 

Seen from the sea, all the Pribilof Islands—St. Paul, St. George, and Otter Island—appear 
as mere rocks, naked and desolate fragments of lava, wasted into bluffs where they touch 
the sea, and shorn off on top by the ice-sheet. The gray surfaces are roughened here and 
there by what, at a distance, seem to be degraded volcanic cones. Nevertheless, they are 
exceedingly interesting, not only because of the marvelous abundance of life about them— 
seals, water birds, and fishes—but because they tell so grand a story concerning the ice- 
sheet that swept over them all from the north. 174 


474 



Biographies M ♦ Muir - Murray 


John Muir wrote eloquently, but at least two of his statements were not factual. It is 
now known that glaciers never covered St. Paul Island; and the fur seals at the time of his 
visit very likely numbered fewer than two million, if not far fewer than two million, rather 
than “three to four million.” 


Murray, Joseph (1843-1898) 

Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. George Island, 1889-1890 

Assistant Agent, St. Paul Island, 1891 and 1893 

Special Treasury Agent, St. Paul Island, 1894-1898 

Alaska Salmon Commissioner 

Fur-Seal Commission, 1896-1897 


Genealogy 

Joseph Murray was born near Dublin in County 
Kildare, Ireland, April 10, 1843. In 1869, Joseph 
Murray married Margaret H. Jordan at Whipparly, 
New Jersey. 175 Joseph and Margaret Murray had 
four children; Annabelle, Jennifer, William, and 
Margaret. Joseph Murray died unexpectedly on 
October 4, 1898, shortly after arriving home from 
St. Paul Island. Anna Balakshin, an Aleut girl, 
had left St. Paul with him on August 23, 1898, 
to attend school in Fort Collins, Colorado, with 
his children. Anna returned to St. Paul Island on 
June 10, 1899, after spending the winter with the 
Murray family. 176 

Biographical Sketch 



Joseph Murray. (Fort Collins, CO, Public 

[Joseph Murray] ... came from a humble yet Library, Thomas L. Moore Coll.) 

honest parentage and early developed those traits 

of character that made him a marked man throughout his eventful career. His leading 
characteristics were liveliness of temperament, enthusiasm, ready sympathy with the weak 
or suffering, and untiring energy. He was educated in the national schools of Ireland and 
at Salford College in England, but did not remain long enough at school to thoroughly 
perfect his education, but inspired by a love of adventure he enlisted at the age of sixteen 
years in the Foreign legion of the army of France and fought under Marshal McMahon in 
the campaign of 1859 against Austrians.... At the conclusion of hostilities, Murray then 
but about 18 years old, came to America in company with several other young compatriots 
with the express purpose of enlisting in the Union army. He landed in New York and joined 
the famous 69th New York Volunteers, which was attached to General Francis Meagher’s 
Irish Brigade in consequence of his previous military experience. Murray was appointed 
drill master of the regiment. Entering the service in 1861. He attained the rank of second 
lieutenant before being mustered out. 


After the war Mr. Murray went to New York City where he acted for a time as bookkeeper 
in a wholesale house. He then went to Paterson, N.J. and was employed as foreman in 


475 








Pribilof Islands: The People 


a factory there.... In 1870, being attracted by the novel and adventurous spirit of the 
Greeley colony then being organized in New York by the late N.C. Meeker, he joined that 
enterprise and came to Colorado and assisted materially in the establishment of the colony 
and the organization of the town of Greeley. For three years he followed the destinies of the 
newly organized colony, when he removed to Larimer County and taking up a ranch under 
the homestead laws near Fossil Creek, five miles south of this city, went into farming. 1 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Joseph Murray deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration on March 19,1892, before Notary 
Public Charles L. Hughes at Washington, D.C.: 

I reside at Fort Collins, Colo.; I am 49 years of age, and I am the first assistant special agent 
at the seal islands in Bering Sea. That in pursuance of Department instructions to me, 
dated April 20, 1889,1 proceeded to the seal islands and landed on St. George Island May 
31, 1889. That I had charge of that island until July 1, 1890, and I was present during the 
whole of two sealing seasons on the island of St. George.... In pursuance of instructions 
from Agent Goff, I left St. George Island on the 19th of July, 1890, and landed on St. Paul 
Island on the 20th of the same month, and remained there until August, 1891. 178 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

The circumstances that brought Joseph Murray to the Pribilof Islands began during 
President Benjamin Harrison’s campaign in 1889: 

Bankrupt and harassed by a thousand perplexities he did not know which way to turn 
when the Harrison campaign opened with its high tariff issues. Mr. Murray was always a 
high tariff man and offered his services to the republican managers as a stump speaker. 

He was readily accepted, as his fame as a forcible and witty public speaker was known far 
and wide. He was sent down into Indiana to deliver tariff speeches before the laboring 
classes and spoke night and day to immense crowds. The state was carried for Harrison 
and in recognition of services rendered, Mr. Murray was appointed special agent of the 
treasury department to take charge of the Alaskan seal fisheries which were being rapidly 
depleted by the incursions of the pelagic sealers. Here was a field that just suited his 
restless, energetic nature and he plunged into the discharge of his new duties with all his 
accustomed vim and it is stated that he said shortly before his death, that he never worked 
so hard as he had done in the ten years that he had been in charge of the seal fisheries, 
which was no doubt true to the letter and a fact to which his untimely death may be 
attributed. In the care of the seal rookeries and the supervision of the fish canneries he had 
an enormous territory to cover. From Sitka, the capital of the territory, to the western most 
island owned by the United States is nearly 5,000 miles. 

Then, during all of his administration, the country has been engaged with Great Britain in 
the seal embargo which added much to the labor and perplexities of his position. He was 
appointed assistant commissioner to investigate the seal rookeries of Russia and Japan and 
sailed thousands of miles through arctic seas making these investigations. He inaugurated 
many new methods in caring for the seals and protecting them from the terrible inroads 
being made by the pelagic sealers. Among these were the branding of the female seals in 
order to destroy the commercial value of their skin and the protection from the rapacious 
marauders of open sea sealing, and the herding of male seals on the seal islands [sic] during 
the open season. 

It was upon his recommendation that the joint high commission, composed of 
representatives of the governments of the United States, Great Britain, Russia and Japan, 
was appointed to investigate the seal rookeries and report some more feasible code 
of regulations for their care and protection than have hitherto been in vogue, and it is 
expected that the commission will make their final report during the coming winter and 


476 







Joseph Murray (second from right) branding female pups and Chief Karp Buterin (second 
from left) heating coals, St. Paul Island, 1897 (Univ. of St. Andrews Special Collections, 
D’Arcy Thompson Coll., DT-039.) 



Joseph Murray (left) and Charles Hamlin (right) riding in a mule-drawn wagon at 
Northeast Point, St. Paul Island. Webster House in background. (AMNH Special 
Collections, Chichester Coll., HDC261, neg. 034917.) 


477 











Pribilof Islands: The People 


that their recommendations will result in the settlement of the vexed seal question between 
the United States and Great Britain for many years to come. 179 

Government agents on the Pribilof Islands lived with the constant threat of clashes 
with pelagic sealers, many of whom possessed such bravado that they would invade the 
islands to kill seals or would ram the agents’ small boats when in chase. Agents Joseph 
Crowley and Joseph Murray wrote in a joint letter to the Secretary of the Treasury, J. G. 
Carlisle: 

On this all-important subject much has been said by the respective agents in charge of 
the Seal Islands, from the time that marauding schooners first appeared in the Bering Sea, 
and their reports were noticed by the British Sea commissioners when summing up their 
charges against our Government for dereliction of duty during the pendency of the Bering 
Sea arbitration matter. On page 32 of their report we find the following language: 

“Some further evidences have been obtained in respect to the frequency of the raid 
upon the islands, and the facility with which in consequence of the wholly inadequate 
protection afforded by the U.S. Government, such illegal and highly injurious onslaughts 
on the seal life of the islands have been made. When it is shown on the sworn evidence of 
men who were concerned or took part in such raids that two schooners anchored to the 
northward off St. Paul for nearly the whole of the summer of 1881-‘82, raiding the islands 
whenever the weather permitted a landing to be made, it can no longer be maintained 
by any impartial person that the protection of the breeding islands has been in any sense 
satisfactory.” 180 

Since the British commissioners were on the seal islands an improved method of protection 
has been adopted by the Department, part of which is to send revenue cutters to patrol the 
sea around the island until late in the fall, all of which we heartily approve. 

In addition to this, however, and in order to give absolute protection to the rookeries, we 
ask for the erection of a system of telephonic communication between the Government 
house and the watchhouses [sic] on the rookeries. 

By this means constant communication can be had between the agent in charge and the 
native guard on the islands. The natives are able and willing to perform the duty of guards, 
but heretofore their facilities to perform such duty have been very limited and of the most 
primitive type. 181 

Mr. Macoun had alleged in the counter case by Great Britain during the Fur-Seal 
Arbitration that “there is only one telephone line on the islands and that during a greater 
portion of the season this line is not in working condition.” 182 

Agents Murray and Crowley continued on in their letter to Secretary of the Treasury 
Carlisle: 

[Macoun’s] statement cannot be successfully denied, and, in fact, the only telephone line 
upon either of the islands is the one from the North American Commercial Company’s 
house to the northeast point rookery (a distance of 12 miles) on St. Paul Island, and this 
line is owned by and kept under the exclusive management of the company. 

With the present system of patrolling Bering Sea by armed vessels, and with telephonic 
communication on the islands as indicated by us, so that the agent in charge may be in 
constant touch with the guards on each rookery, we have no hesitation in saying that 
absolute protection can be given to the islands as against any future attempt of seal 
poachers. To accomplish this it will require 40 miles of wire and 9 telephones, at an 
expense, approximated at $2,000. 


478 




Biographies M ♦ Murray 



U.S. Revenue Service Steamer Rush. (Charles S. Hamlin Papers, 728-179, Archives, 
Alaska and Polar Regions Coll., Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.) 


A supply of 50 Winchester repeating rifles and sufficient ammunition for guarding 
purposes will cost $1,000. 

In this respect we find copied in the Counter-case of Great Britain Fur Seal Arbitration 
Case, p. 292, from the report of Agent A. W. Lavender, in 1890, as follows: 

"I have again to request you to do your best to obtain arms and ammunition for these 
islands, and hope you will be able to secure them, for without them the rookeries can 
not be protected in a proper manner. The only rifles that answer for the protection of the 
rookeries belong to the natives and are of but little use. 

“In addition to the few rifles owned by the natives the company has found four small Colt’s 
rifles and one Sharp’s, with very little ammunition for any of them.” 

Following which quotation we find the following allegation by the British commissioners. 

“It will thus be seen that raiding on the Pribilof Islands has been carried on persistently, at 
least since 1868, and that from that date the authorities have known of the raids, and from 
the earliest time urgently demanded precautions in prevention. In short, under present 
regulations and arrangements there is no difficulty or danger whatever to vessels raiding 
along shore in the night or in any of the frequent fogs at several of the best rookeries, 
except when a revenue cutter chances to be close by, an occasional occurrence well known 
to every marauding schooner.” 183 

In 1892, the Native work crew constructed two new watch houses at Halfway Point 
(Polovina) and Zapadni to attempt to spot and ward off these pirates. On September 
13, 1892, as Assistant Agent Murray readied to depart St. Paul Island, the steamer Rush 
landed 500 cartridges on St. Paul Island for government use, presumably in defense 
against marauders, along with six Springfield rifles, bringing the total on the island to 


479 















Pribilof Islands: The People 


twelve Springfield rifles and 540 rounds. 184 When Murray returned in 1893, he spoke 
bluntly: 

Put a Winchester rifle into the hands of every adult male on the island (they prefer 45-70 
[caliber]) and then put agents in charge who are physically able to walk over the rough 
ground when it becomes necessary to do so, and it will be found that no outsiders are 
needed there to do guard duty. 

I most earnestly call the attention of the Department to the fact that the fewer strangers, 
whether guards, visitors, or others, allowed to land or dwell upon the seal islands, the 
better it is for the native people, who are rarely benefited by contact with white men. 

To send white men, as a reserve guard, to remain in the villages while the natives go out 
from 6 to 12 miles to guard the seals, is to insult and injure every native man on the island, 
and, if persisted in, will eventually end in blood. For the sake of peace—for the good of 
the native people—I suggest that no more white men, soldiers or sailors, be landed on the 
islands to do guard duty. 185 

On June 12, 1894, Joseph Murray was appointed Special Treasury Agent and Alaska 
Salmon Commissioner, after being an assistant agent on St. Paul Island in 1891 and 1893. 
He was instructed by Secretary of the Treasury John G. Carlisle to make a complete in¬ 
vestigation of the Alaska fisheries and the fur-seal industry. The following excerpts from 
the St. Paul Island Agent’s Log kept by Assistant Agent James Judge mention Salmon 
Commissioner Murray’s presence on the island in the company of Assistant Secretary of 
the Treasury C. S. Hamlin: 



Left to right: Joseph Stanley-Brown, Joseph Murray, Charles S. Hamlin, and members 
of an Unaagin sealing crew on fur-seal killing grounds, Northeast Point, St. Paul Island. 
Webster House and telephone poles in the background. (AMNH Special Collections, 
Chichester Coll., HDC262, neg. 0349S6.) 


480 








Biographies M ♦ Murray 


August 3, 1894 

Revenue cutter Rush came to anchor at East Landing, having on board Mr. C. S. Hamlin 
Assistant Secretary of Treasury, Mr. McGrath his private secretary and Col. Joseph Murray 
Salmon Commissioner. 


August 4, 1894 

Made a seal drive from the Reef, Sec. Hamlin attending both the drive and killing and 
afterwards visiting the Reef and intervening breeding grounds.... In the evening a dance 
was given which was attended by every man woman and child in the village in honor of the 
Hon. Secretary. 


August 5, 1894 

The Hon. Secty. of the U.S. Treasury Mr. Hamlin visited Katvie & Lukannon Rookeries 
and in the afternoon he visited Tolstoi, Middlehill [Polovina] and Zapadnie rookeries. At 5 
o’clock in the evening Father Reseff [Rysev] held special services in the church in honor of 
the Secretary. 

August 6, 1894 

Hon. C.S. Hamlin came ashore from the Rush at 9:30. In accordance with the Russian 
custom of expressing allegiance and loyalty to the government under which they live; a 
committee of the natives headed by their chief, Nicoli Krukoff, waited upon Hon. C.S. 
Hamlin and presented him with a loaf of bread in which a crevice had been cut and the 
hole filled with salt. The distinguished gentleman accepted the token of esteem with 
becoming dignity and expressed his appreciation both of the present and the people on the 
Island. 


August 7, 1894 

At 9am Sec. Hamlin accompanied by Salmon Commissioner Murray went to N.E. Point 
in a buckboard, returning in the evening reporting that the weather was all that could be 
desired and that they had a splendid view of the point. 

To Col. Murray belongs the credit of having originated the agitation which resulted in the 
procuring of an annual appropriations for the sustenance of the people and for the bringing 
of fuel in plenty to the Islands. Nor did he stop here, for on his departure last August he 



Joseph Murray sleeping in a chair, St. Paul Island, circa 1890s. (NAA, Arctic: Aleut series, 
lot 24, 1463000.) 


481 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


had a project on foot which it is hoped his successor will carry to completion of bringing 
water for domestic purposes to the village instead of having the people carry it one half 
mile as is the case at present. 186 


1 Mary G. McGeown, ca. 1980, “John Macoun: Botanist and Explorer from Maralin,” Review, Journal 
of Craigavon Historical Society 4 (2): 7-11. 

2 Registrations of marriages, 1869-1922, MS932, reel 65, Archives of Ontario, Toronto, Canada. 

3 Harlan I. Smith, “James M. Macoun,” Science, new series 51, no. 1324 (1920): 478-9; and Theo. 

Holm, “Briefer Articles: James Macoun,” The Botanical Gazette 70, no. 3 (1920): 240. 

4 Smith, “James M. Macoun,” 479. 

5 Ibid. 

6 Ibid. 

7 Ibid. 

8 Editorial, New York Times, Nov. 25, 1897, 6. 

9 G Dallas Hanna, “Random Comparisons of St. Paul Island as observed by Dr. G Dallas Hanna in 
1960 after an absence of 40 years” (Belvedere Scientific Fund, 1960), 14. Hanna’s recollections of 
events more than 45 years previous to his writing were understandably a bit hazy. He wrote that 
James Macoun was on the island in 1913 but should have said 1914. Hanna identified Dr. Hunter 
as the doctor attending to Macoun, but Dr. Hunter was not on St. Paul Island until 1915. Hanna 
also said he took a photograph of Macoun with Henry W. Elliott and Agent Walter Lembkey; the 
latter two were present in 1913 but not in 1914, when Macoun was there. Victor B. Scheffer, Clifford 
H. Fiscus, and Ethel I. Todd, History of Scientific Study and Management of the Alaskan Fur Seal, 
Callorhinus ursinus, 1786-1964, NOAA Tech. Rep. NMFS SSRF-780, 1984, 13, recounted Hanna’s 
observation of Macoun as an old man, but they also recognized some of Hanna’s memory lapses 
(Macoun’s presence in 1914 and not 1913, for example). 

10 Scheffer et al., History of Scientific Study, 22. 

11 Smith, “James M. Macoun,” 479. The C.M.G. stands for Companion of the Order of St. Michael and 
St. George. It is a British medal presented to those who have performed “extraordinary or impor¬ 
tant non-military service in a foreign country,” or provided “important or loyal service in relation to 
foreign and Commonwealth affairs.” See http://www.hopkirk.org/hopkirk/CMG.html (accessed Mar. 
18, 2009). 

12 J. M. Macoun, “A List of the Plants of the Pribilof Islands, Bering Sea. With Notes on Their 
Distribution,” in The Fur Seals and Fur-Seal Islands of the North Pacific Ocean, ed. David Starr 
Jordan, U.S. Treasury Department, Doc. no. 2017 (Washington, DC: GPO), pt. 3, Special Papers 
relating to the Fur Seal and to the Natural History of the Pribilof Islands, 559-87 and plates 87-94. 

13 J. M. Macoun, “The Fur Seal of the North Pacific,” Transactions of Ottawa Literary and Scientific 
Society 1 (1897), 164. See also Macoun, “A List of the Plants.” 

14 Macoun, “The Fur Seal,” 69. 

15 Ibid., 71 and 73. 

16 Ibid., 162 and 217. 

17 Betty A. Lindsay and John A. Lindsay, Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Genealogy and Census, NOAA Tech. 
Memo. NOS ORR 18 (2009), 12 and 168. 

18 Ibid., 161. 

19 Ibid., 330. 

20 Ibid., 366. 

21 Ibid., 14. 

22 St. George Island Agent’s Log, June 28, 1893, 290, NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, RG 22. 

23 Taken from the 1889 annual report by Agent Charles J. Goff in U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special 
Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries and General Resources of Alaska (Washington, DC: GPO, 
1898), vol. 1, 216-7; also see the biography of Dr. Luman A. Noyes in this book for additional com¬ 
ments about Manchester. 

24 Official Logs, St. George Island 1937-40; WWI registration card; and U.S. Federal Census, 1900- 
1930, Ancestry.com. 


482 





Biographies M ♦ Murray-Notes 


25 Gale Literary Databases, http://galenet.galegroup.com (accessed May 29, 2003); “Picture Story,” 
at http://www.augusta.com/leaders/slideshow_national/slide32.html (accessed July 11, 2003); and 
University of Georgia Libraries, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Georgiana vertical file, 
Edison Marshall. 

26 “Picture Story,” http://www.augusta.com/leaders/slideshow_national/slide32.html (accessed July 11, 
2003). 

27 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log passenger lists for Aug. 4 and 14, 1926, Pribilof Islands Logbooks, 
1870-1961, NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, RG 22. 

28 Edison Marshall, The Far Call (New York: J. J. Little & Ives, 1928); cf 1st ed. (New York: 
Cosmopolitan, 1927). 

29 “Filming Musical Comedy; Cinema Flashes,” New York Times, Mar. 24, 1929, Amusements, 6. 

30 Internet Movie Data Base, http://www.imdb.com (accessed Mar. 18, 2009). The authors have been 
unable to locate a copy of the film. 

31 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, July 1, 1925; and Internet Movie Data Base, http://www.imdb.com/ 
find?s=nm&q=Merl+LaVoy (accessed Mar. 18, 2009). 

32 Nathan Washington Marston, The Marston Genealogy (Lubec, ME: 1888), 142 and 150. 

33 “Death of Colonel Marston,” San Diego Union, Aug. 17, 1888, 8; U.S. Census, 1850, Portsmouth, 
Rockingham County, NH, and Sandown, Rockingham County, NH; 1867 plat map, http://www. 
sandown.us/historicalsociety (accessed Jan. 17, 2007). 

34 Library of Congress, Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, 1859-1860, vol. 

56, 187-9, 1859 (While the date of publication on the tiltle page of this book is 1859, it incorpo¬ 
rates the proceedings through April 13, I860.); “Gilman Marston, 1811-1890,” Library of Congress, 
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-Present, http://bioguide.congress.gov/ 
scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=M000165 (accessed Jan. 23, 2007); and U.S. Census, 1860, Washington, 
DC, 4th Ward, 268, line 10. 

35 Marston, The Marston Genealogy, 150; “Farmer’s Cabinet,” The Portsmouth Chronicle, 2, America’s 
Historical Newspapers, http://infoweb.newsbank.com (accessed Jan 23, 2009);. U.S. Census, 1880, 
Hampstead, NH, 189; and “Death of Colonel Marston,” San Diego Union, Aug. 17, 1888, 8. 

36 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, June 27, 1875, 329. 

37 Ibid., Aug. 6, 1875, 345. 

38 21st inst. (instant) meaning the 21st day of the current month. 

39 Ibid., Sept. 24, 352. 

40 Ibid., 353. 

41 Ibid., Oct. 24, 1875, 357. 

42 Ibid., Nov. 1, 358. The relative health and comfort of these wooden homes was challenged by nu¬ 
merous authors decades later as one of the great travesties levied upon the Pribilof Islands Native 
population: cf. Alison I<. Hoagland, “Russian Churches, American Houses, Aleut People: Converging 
Cultures in the Pribilof Islands,” in Images of an American Land, ed. Thomas Carter. (Albuquerque: 
Univ. of New Mexico Press), 129-49; and Dorothy Knee Jones, A Century of Servitude: Pribilof 
Aleuts under U.S. Rule (Washington, DC: Univ. Press of America, 1980), 20. 

43 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, Oct. 25, 1875, 357. 

44 Ibid., Nov. 21, 1875, 365. 

45 PM is the presumed intent; the handwritten letters are difficult to read. 

46 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, Nov. 22, 1875, 366. 

47 Ibid., Sept. 22, 1876, 456-7. 

48 Ibid., Jan. 6, 1876, 378. 

49 Ibid., Jan. 9, 379-80. 

50 Ibid., Jan. 18, 382-3. 

51 Ibid., May 7, 408-9. 

52 Ibid., July 16, 433. Father Kovrigin was apparently a visiting priest, possibly filling in for Fr. Paul 
Shaiashnikoff. 

53 Ibid., July 27, 1876, 436. Father Nikolai was a highly respected member of the Russian Orthodox 
Church. His visit to St. Paul Island was especially welcomed by the community. The history of Fr. 
Nikolai and Bishop Paul Popov during the Russian-American transition provides some interest¬ 
ing perspective. “During the Holy Week of 1868, an Orthodox Priest was sent to the City [San 
Francisco] from Alaska to conduct the paschal services here. That priest, Father Nicholas Kovrigin, 


483 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


became the first permanent Orthodox minister in San Francisco (until his return to Russia in 1879).” 
Source: Archpriest Victor Sokolov, A Brief History of Holy Trinity Cathedral, http://www.holy- 
trinity.org/about/history.html. 

Bishop Paul (Popov) of Novoarkhangelsk (New Archangel) had assigned Fr. Nikolai to San Francisco 
in 1868. "Bishop [Bp.] Paul arrived in Alaska as it was being sold to the United States, and he was 
confronted with the transition from Russian to American rule. The incoming American sectarians 
were accompanied by the military, and life, particularly in New Archangel, became perilous. Sitka, 
as the New Archangel became known, was reduced to a population of only twenty families by 1877. 

With the multitude of changes that this transition caused, his rule was marked by great difficulties. It 
was also during this period that Bp. Paul initiated a move that heralded the coming transfer of the see 
to San Francisco. For a period of time Bp. Paul had assigned Priest Nikolai Kovrigin to San Francisco 
to serve the spiritual needs of the Slavic population in the San Francisco area. Fr. Nikolai arrived in 
late March of 1868. He served his first Divine Liturgy on Pascha in a residence on Mission Street. 

Fr. Nikolai also noted in his report to Bp. Paul that the Gospel was read in four languages; Greek, 

Slavonic, English, and Russian.” Fr. Nikolai returned to Alaska in May 1868, and in 1876 he visited St. 

Paul Is. Source: C. J. Tarasar and John H. Erickson, eds., “Orthodox America 1794-1976: Development 
of the Orthodox Church in America,” (Syosett, NY: Orthodox Church in America, 1975). 

54 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, Jan. 24, 1876, 384. 

55 Ibid., Oct. 15, 1875, 355. 

56 Ibid., May 29, 1876, 415. 

57 Ibid., June 8, 418. 

58 Ibid., June 13, 419-20. 

59 Ibid., Aug. 15, 1875, 346. 

60 Ibid., Aug. 19, 347. 

61 Ibid., Aug. 30, 348-9. 

62 Samuel Berenberg’s father, Joseph, was born at Podolsk, Russia, on May 25, 1881, and naturalized at 
the U.S. District Court, Boston (Roxbury) on June 12, 1923; Samuel’s mother was Leah Righter (Jan. 
15, 1889-Mar. 6, 1968), Ancestry World Tree at Ancestry.com. 

63 Guide to the Fredericka Martin Papers, 1926-1990 (Bulk 1968-1984) including Historical/ 
Biographical Note—Fredericka I. Martin prepared by Jessica Weglein, Dec. 2004, 4. Courtesy of 
Tamiment Library Archives & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, 
New York University. 

64 Ibid., 2-4. 

65 Personal correspondence between Simeon Melovidov and Fredericka Berenberg 1941-43, Pribilof 
Island Coll., Archives, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Rasmuson Library Special Collections. 

Richard H. Geoghegan (1906-1943), born in Dublin, Ireland, became a world recognized author¬ 
ity as a linguist who knew more than 200 languages and dialects, and a linguistics consultant. See his 
biography in this book; also Richard Henry Geoghegan and Fredericka Martin, The Aleut Language: 
The Elements of Aleut Grammar with a Dictionary in Two Parts Containing Basic Vocabularies of 
Aleut and English. (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Interior, 1944), 4-6. 

66 More details about the attack on Dutch Harbor can be read in Brian Garfield’s The Thousand-Mile 
War: World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians (Fairbanks: Univ. of Alaska, 1995). 

67 Further details regarding the Aleut evacuation can be found in books such as Dean Kohlhoff’s 
When the Wind Was a River (Seattle: Univ. Washington Press, 1995); John C. Kirtland and David 
Coffin Jr., The Relocation and Internment of the Aleuts During World War II, vols. 1-8, plus master 
index (Aleutian/Pribilof Islands Assoc., 1981); Aleutian/Pribilof Islands Assoc., Making it Right: The 
Relocation and Internment of the Aleuts during World War II (Anchorage: Aleutian/Pribilof Island 
Assoc., 1993); Barbara Boyle Torrey, Slaves of the Harvest: The Story of the Pribilof Aleuts (St. Paul 
Island: Tanadgusix Corp., 1978); and Umnak: The People Remember, An Aleutian History, compiled 
by Tyler M. Schlung and students of Nikolski School, Umnak Island, Alaska (Walnut Creek, CA: 
Hardscratch, 2002). 

68 Dr. Berenberg subsequently returned to serve the Funter Bay community until 1943. 

69 James C. Curry papers, box 137-141, National Anthropological Archives, Washington, DC; St. Paul 
Island Official Agent’s Log, 1942, NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, RG 22, box 29. 

70 The historical record supports the government officials’ accusations, although it doesn’t justify their 
use. Especially during 1950-63, the suggestion that someone was a communist or communist sym¬ 
pathizer could ruin the individual’s reputation and career. The use of unsubstantiated allegations to 


484 



Biographies M ♦ Notes 


that end, especially by government officials and certain fraternal organizations, is a hallmark of one 
of the nation’s darkest periods. 

In 1953, during interrogations as part of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s inquisition on un-Ameri¬ 
can activities, archivist Sherrod East responded to Chief Counsel Roy Marcus Cohn’s suggestion that 
Dr. Samuel Berenberg was a communist. The following statements are taken from U.S. Congress, 
Senate, Executive Sessions of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee 
on Government Operations, vol. 4, 83rd Cong., 1st sess., 1953 (Washington, DC: GPO, 2003), 2878- 
82 (made public in Jan. 2003). Not all the questions and answers are included as they were either not 
related to the subject or only indirectly related, or superfluous. History has already judged Senator 
“Joe” McCarthy and his inquisition. 

Mr. Cohn. Do you know a Dr. Samuel Berenberg? 

Mr. East. Yes, sir. He is the doctor I referred to. 

Mr. Cohn. What is his wife’s name? 

Mr. East. His wife’s name, I believe, was Frederica [sic] Martin Berenberg. 

Mr. Cohn. Was Dr. Berenberg a pretty well-known Communist sympathizer? 

Mr. East. As I say, looking back I think he was. 

Mr. Cohn. What was his connection with the health association? 

Mr. East. He was one of three doctors hired by the association to practice medicine. 

Mr. Cohn. Did you in your official capacity have anything to do with his employment? 

Mr. East. Not originally. It does happen I was on the board. He was in Greenbelt [Health Association] 
two different times. It does happen I was on the board when he was hired the second time. He had 
left the first time to go to the Pribilof Islands to work for the Department of the Interior. When the 
war came on the Pribilofs were evacuated, I believe, and Greenbelt was without a physician. We were 
very anxious to get one doctor and they were very scarce. He was available and I was on the board that 
hired him back. 

Mr. Cohn. Now, Mr. East, did you know at the time that Dr. Berenberg was a Communist? 

Mr. East. I certainly did not. 

Mr. Cohn. Had he ever said anything to lead you to believe he was? 

Mr. East. Only to this extent. He left about 1939 and up until that time it had never entered my head 
that he was a Communist sympathizer. I observed later that his attitude towards the war was quite 
different after he came back from the Pribilofs. 

Mr. Cohn. During the Hitler-Stalin Pact he was not as anxious to have the United States go in? 

Mr. East. That is my distinct impression, yes, sir. 

Mr. Cohn. Did you ever know he was circulating Communist literature? 

Mr. East. He never circulated any to me. He would have known, I hope better. 

Mr. Cohn. Did you have anything to do with his [Berenberg’s] leaving? 

Mr. East.... He resigned of his own free will, except we had one other physician at the time and they 
did not get along and I assume that is one of the reasons. 

Mr. Cohn. Now, did you, yourself, ever give a lawn party for the benefit of the Spanish Loyalists? 

Mr. East. No, I did not. I was living in a farm house ... and I allowed my premises to be used by Mrs. 

Berenberg to hold such a benefit for Spanish refugees. She had been a nurse with the Spanish Loyalists. 

Mr. Cohn. When was that? 

Mr. East_I think that it was sometime in 1949 or 1950, but I don’t know for sure. 

Mr. Cohn. Did you attend the party? 

Mr. East. I did not know it was held under the auspices of any organization and still don’t know if it 
was. She simply said she would like to do something, having been in Spain, she said she would like to 
do something for the Spanish refugees. As far as I knew it was a personal thing with her. 

Mr. Cohn. Now, let me ask you this, Mr. East. Based on the facts we have gone over here in connection 
with your appointment of Dr. Berenberg and your associations with other people, would you have 
considered yourself a good security risk? 

Mr. East. I most certainly would have then and I would now. 


485 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


Mr. Cohn. In connection with some of the cases you passed on on the loyalty board—I am not asking 
you for any names or about any individuals, but in what percentage of cases you passed on where the 
allegation was Communist activities did you recommend suspension? 

Mr. East. I don’t know. I mean Communist activities is a very broad term. I have no idea but all I know 
is that I acted on some cases where we did recommend some suspensions. I acted on a greater number 
where I did not recommend suspension. When I say I acted, 1 acted as a member of the panel. 

Mr. Cohn. Isn’t it a matter of fact that you recommended against suspension in the vast majority of 
cases? 

Mr. East. [To Mr. Adams—presumably East’s counsel] Well is that legitimate? 

Mr. Cohn. Mr. East, taking everything that you say here at face value today, I think it still might suggest 
that one who was as fooled as you were by Communists and Communist sympathizers might not be 
in a position to evaluate these cases with understanding and perspicacity. For instance, suppose the 
case of Dr. Berenberg and Mrs. Berenberg had come up. They apparently fooled you once, according 
to your own statement and you might have an unfortunate result if those and other people were in 
sensitive positions. 

Mr. East. They did not fool me in the sense you are using the term. Secondly, Berenberg was hired as 
a doctor. He was a good one no matter what his political complexion was then, now or ever was, and 1 
resent, if I may say so, the implication that I can’t judge when a man’s political complexion, if political 
is the right word, has a bearing on his duties. 

Interestingly, several government officials characterized the Pribilofs as being in a “communistic” 
state of affairs long before Martin and her husband arrived in the islands—e.g., George Wardman, 

A Trip to Alaska: A Narrative (San Francisco: Samuel Carlson, 1884), 109, and G Dallas Hanna, The 
Alaska Fur Seal Islands (Washington, DC: GPO, 2008), 258. 

The suggestion that the Pribilof Islands were communistic dates back at least to ca. 1879, when 
former Treasury Agent George Wardman (see biography) wrote of his experiences on the islands 
[A Trip to Alaska: A Narrative, 109). He discussed the relationship between the government and 
the commercial company monopoly and the Natives as one that portended a “communistic system.” 
Walter Lembkey wrote the following: “The system involved in the foregoing arrangement for natives’ 
support is one of almost pure communism. The main problem confronting those charged with its 
conduct was to support the people in such comfort and happiness as the resources would allow 
and at the same time to minimize those admitted evils of communal existence which, in this case, 
could easily result in reducing the island inhabitants to a mental condition of stolid apathy, and a 
physical condition of virtual peonage, if not slavery.” (Barton W. Evermann, Alaska Fisheries and Fur 
Industries in 1913, U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, Doc. no. 797, (Washington, DC: GPO, 1914), 141-8, 
under the subheading “Support of Natives, Problems in Communistic System”). Lembkey’s state¬ 
ment was reproduced by Osgood et al. in their 1914 publication “The fur seals and other life of the 
Pribilof Islands, Alaska, in 1914,” Bull, of the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries 34, 134-8. 

Natural historian G Dallas Hanna, in The Alaska Fur-Seal Islands, 258, wrote: “A system of pure 
communism has been maintained upon the [Pribilof] islands since 1870. From 1870 to 1879, the 
village was paid 40 cents for each sealskin that was accepted by the leasing company. The gross pro¬ 
ceeds were lumped at the end of the season and credited on the books of the company to the village. 
The division of this sum was made pro rata according to the skill of the individual. The individu¬ 
als were then permitted to draw from the company’s store the amount of their division in goods at 
invoice cost plus a profit varying from 25 to 75 percent.” 

The topic of communism is raised in this endnote to clarify the record and not to impugn Ms. 
Martin or Dr. Berenberg, who can be considered heroes for their courage and the strength of their 
efforts to better the lives of those less fortunate. 

71 Jones, A Century of Servitude, 131; and Dennis Remick and Patricia Stanley, Islands of Time, film 
documentary, 58 min., Silky Way Productions. 

72 For more on her life and work, see Lisa Marie Short, “Fredericka I. Martin,” MA thesis, Alaska 
Pacific Univ., Anchorage, 1995. 

73 Guide to the Fredericka Martin Papers, 4. Tamiment Library Archives & Robert L. Wagner Labor 
Archives at the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York Univ. 

74 David Mattison, Camera Workers: The British Columbia, Alaska & Yukon Photographic Directory, 
1858-1950 (Victoria, BC: Camera Workers Press, 1985), 399-401, available online at http://collec- 
tion.nlc-bnc.ca/100/200/300/david_mattison/camera_workers/index.html (accessed Mar. 31, 2004); 


486 



Biographies M ♦ Notes 


and Richard Maynard notebooks, British Columbia Archives Visual Records Collection Guide, 
Richard and Hanna Maynard’s descriptive notes to their collection, “Maynard Archives,” http:// 
www.slais.ubc.ca/COURSES/arst593b/03-04-wt2/Assignmentl/Assignl_Lund_Sokolon/index.html 
(accessed Mar. 19, 2009). See also “Maynard’s Photographic Gallery,” http://web.uvic.ca/vv/student/ 
maynard/Galleries.htm (accessed Mar. 19, 2009). 

75 “Hannah Maynard, 1834-1918,” Women in BC History—BC Archives Time Machine, http://www. 
bcarchives.gov.be.ca/exhibits/timemach/gallerlO/frames/maynard.htm (accessed Mar. 19, 2009); see 
also Mattison, Camera Workers-, a revised version of the book was turned into a website of the same 
name. See “Maynard, Hannah Hatherly,” and “Maynard, Richard,” at http://www.members.shaw.ca/ 
bchistorian/cwl858-1950.html (accessed Mar. 19, 2009). 

76 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1892, 24. 

77 Richard Maynard Notebooks, Alaska, St. Paul Island July 1-Aug. 23, 1892, British Columbia 
Archives Index Guide Room, Victoria, BC. Pile 5 includes a photo notebook guide to images in the 
collection. 

78 Mattison, Camera Workers, 400. Available online at http://collection.nlc-bnc.ca/100/200/300/david_ 
mattison/camera_workers/index.html (accessed Mar. 31, 2004). 

79 Robert Harry Mclntire, The MacINTYRE, McINTYRE and McINTIRE Clan of Scotland, Ireland, 
Canada, and New England (Norfolk, VA: self-published, 1949), 19. 

80 Nickerson and Cox, The Illustrated Historical Souvenir of Randolph, Vermont (Randolph, VT: 
Nickerson and Cox, 1895), 101. 

81 Kodiak Historical Society, “Murder in the Erskine House - notes wrung out of Dawn Black,” Oct. 11, 
1989. This one-page memorandum which summarized the sources for the identity of the murderer 
was sent to the authors by Alice [surname unknown] from the Society in 2004. 

82 Ibid., 101. 

83 Walter Heywood Karr, Shores and Alps of Alaska (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, 
Rivington, 1887), 230-2. Additional accounts of the murder can be found in The San Francisco 
Bulletin, Nov. 17, 1886; and Robert E. King, “More than the Murder on Kodiak: The McIntyre Lamily 
in Alaska, 1868-1890’s,” paper presented to the Kodiak Historical Soc., Kodiak, AK, 1998. 

84 “American Civil War Soldiers,” Ancestry.com. 

85 The “little book” was a 28-page journal. Emma sent it to her mother in July 1874 from St. George 
Island. 

86 Emma Jane McIntyre, “Life In The Pribilof Islands,” original at Bancroft Library, Berkeley, CA. Copy 
at Alaska State Library Archives, Juneau, Alaska, manuscript file MS 26. 

87 Correspondence, William J. McIntyre to Dr. W. H. Dali, Coast Survey, Washington, DC, SIA, RU 
7073, box 13, folder 37. 

88 Mclntire, The MacINTYRE, 18, cites the name as “Hambden,” but it is commonly given as “Hamden.” 

89 Lewis Publishing Co., Memorial and Biographical History of Northern California (Chicago: Lewis, 
1891), 744-5. 

90 Mclntire, The MacINTYRE, 18. 

91 Lewis Publishing Co., Memorial, 744-5. The manuscript read “enforced by ill-health further and 
broader.” 

92 Ibid., 744-5. Hamden McIntyre biographical sketch transcribed here from original text. 

93 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, June 15, 1880, 176. 

94 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1880, 176, Pribilof Islands Logbooks 1870-1961, NARA, Pacific Alaska 
Region, Anchorage, RG 22; and U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon 
Fisheries of Alaska, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: GPO), 135. 

95 Lt. Washburn Maynard’s report was summarized in Elliott, A Monograph of the Pribylov Group, or 
Seal-Islands of Alaska (NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1882), 102-8. 

96 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, convened at Paris 
under the Treaty between the United States of America and Great Britain, concluded at Washington 
February 29, 1892, for the determination of questions between the two governments concerning the 
jurisdictional rights of the United States in the waters of Bering Sea, vol. 3 (Washington, DC: GPO, 
1895), 134-8. 

97 Nickerson and Cox, The Illustrated Historical Souvenir, 100-101. 

98 Mclntire, The MacINTYRE, 19. 

99 Nickerson and Cox, The Illustrated Historical Souvenir, 100-101. 


487 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


100 Mclntire, The MacINTYRE, 19. 

101 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 40-44, 30, 44-47, 47-54, 54-59, 517-8, and 599-601. 

102 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 40 and 47. 

103 Given his other statements, the reference to June 1869 as the date he accepted a position with the 
Alaska Commercial Company is very probably an error and should have read 1870. 

104 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 40. McIntyre submitted his December 1869 U.S. Treasury 
Special Agent Report to the Vermont Watchman & State Journal. McIntyre’s Report was condensed 
in the 1871 issues of the Watchman, on May 3rd giving his account of the “Pribyloff” Islands and 
the west coast of Alaska followed on July 12th by his account of Alaska and its resources. Vermont 
Watchman & State Journal, Montpelier, Vermont, July 12, 1871, p. 3. 

105 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 54. 

106 David Starr Jordan and George Archibald Clark, “The History, Condition, and Needs of the Herd of 
Fur Seals Resorting to the Pribilof Islands” in The Fur Seals and Fur-Seal Islands of the North Pacific 
Ocean (Washington, DC: GPO, 1898), pt. 1, 28. 

107 Alphonse Pinart may have taken the earliest photographs in 1870. 

108 Robert E. King, “The Pribilof Islands in the 1870s: The Stereo-Photographs of Dr. Hugh H. 

McIntyre,” Alaska History 9, no. 1 (1994): 39 and 40. 

109 Robert E. King, “The Pribilof Islands in 1871: The Story of Mrs. Hugh H. McIntyre and her 
Remarkable Letters,” paper presented at the 21st annual meeting of the Alaska Anthropological 
Association’s Historical Anthropology Session, Juneau, AK, 1994, 13. 

110 King, “The Pribilof Islands in the 1870s,” 38-45. 

111 The last three sentences to the transcription are presented herein as provided in the source. It seems 
likely that these sentences were provided by either Agent Tingle or Hugh McIntyre rather than as 
part of Capt. Tulles’ log entries. Source: U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and 
Salmon Fisheries, vol. 3, 523-4. 

112 U.S. Censuses, 1850-1930. 

113 “American Civil War Soldiers,” Ancestry.com. 

114 California Death Index, 1940-1997, Ancestry.com. 

115 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Letter by William J. McIntyre in Seal and Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1, 76-7. 

116 Ibid., 130. 

117 Ibid., 132-3. 

118 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1, 90. 

119 U.S. Census; WWI Draft Registration Card; Washington State Death Index, Ancestry.com. 

120 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 29-30. 

121 Thomas A. Mendenhall, History, Correspondence and Pedigrees of the Mendenhalls of England, The 
United States and Africa, Relative to Their Common Origin and Ancestry (Greenville, OH: Chas. R. 
Kemble, 1912), 105. 

122 Ibid., 105-6. 

123 The Pribilof Islands census records show that Evan Merculoff was born on Jan. 31, 1876, but they 
also gave Feb. 8, 1877 as his birth date (Betty A. Lindsay and John A. Lindsay, Genealogy and Census, 
290). 

124 Lindsay and Lindsay, Genealogy and Census, 124. 

125 Ibid., 195. 

126 Ibid., 284. 

127 Ibid., 290, 297, and 301. 

128 St. George Island Agent’s Log, June 28, 1893, 289. 

129 Ibid. 

130 Lydia T. Black, Russians in America: 1732-1867 (Fairbanks: Univ. of Alaska, 2004), 131. 

131 Ivan Veniaminov, Notes on the Islands of the Unalashka District ( Zapiski ob ostrovakh 
Unalashkinskago otdeyla), ed. Richard A. Pierce, trans. Lydia T. Black and R. H. Geoghegan, 
(Fairbanks, AK and Kingston, ON: Univ. of Alaska and Limestone Press, 1984), 178. 

132 Black, Russians in America, 132. 

133 Veniaminov, Notes on the Islands, 256. 

134 Kiril Timofeevich Khlebnikov, Notes on Russian America, Parts II-V: Kad'iak, Unalashka, Atkha, 

The Pribylovs, ed. Richard A. Pierce, trans. Marina Ramsay (Kingston, ON, and Fairbanks, AI<: 
Limestone Press, 1994), 270-1. In a footnote to this passage, Khlebnikov stated that Vasilii 


488 



Biographies M ♦ Notes 


Zheleznov was the baidaras steersman; taken with this note and the passage’s introduction, “oc¬ 
curred with one detachment of [emph. added] Merkul’ev’s artel” suggests that Vasilii Merkul’iev was 
not present on the trip as stated by Black in Russians in Alaska, 131, and Pierce, Russian America: A 
Biographical Dictionary (Fairbanks: Limestone Press), 355. The following is taken from Black, 131: 

[In 1799, Merkul iev] was sailing a baidara from St. George to St. Paul, with a large group of men, 
when they were carried by a storm to the Alaska mainland. Trying to land, they encountered hostile 
\up ik (Central Alaska Eskimo) warriors. After a brief encounter, in which the intruders were bested, 
Merkul’iev was forced to sail on, seeking shelter elsewhere.” 

135 Rossiter Johnson and John Howard Brown, eds., The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of 
Notable Americans: Brief Biographies of Authors, Administrators, Clergymen, Commanders, Editors, 
Engineers, Jurists, Merchants, Officials, Philanthropists, Scientists, Statesmen and Others Who Are 
Making American History (Boston: Biographical Society, 1904), vol. 7, 349. 

136 ‘Gunboat Albatross,” http://www.navsource.org/archives (accessed Apr. 3, 2009); “C. Hart Merriam 
Scientist, Dies 86,” New York Times, Mar. 21, 1942, 17; “Clinton Hart Merriam,” http://www.britan- 
nica.com/EBchecked/topic/376310/Clinton-Hart-Merriam (accessed May 24, 2009); and “C. Hart 
Merriam Biography” http://www.mpcer.nau.edu/merriam.html (accessed May 24, 2009). 

137 “C. Hart Merriam Scientist, Dies 86,” New York Times. 

138 Ibid. 

139 Charles H. Smith, “Merriam, C(linton) Hart,” http://www.wku.edu/~smithch/chronob/MERR1855. 
htm (accessed Apr. 3, 2009); and “Clinton Hart Merriam,” http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/ 
topic/376310/Clinton-Hart-Merriam (accessed Apr. 3, 2009). 

140 “C. Hart Merriam and the Life Zones Concept,” Biotic Communities of the Colorado Plateau, http:// 
cpluhna.nau.edu/Biota/merriam.htm (accessed Apr. 3, 2009). 

141 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, Aug. 1891, 377; and C. H. Merriam and J. N. Rose, “Plants of the Pribilof 
Islands, Bering Sea,” Biological Society of Washington, Proceedings, 7: 133-50. 

142 “Fur Seal’s Probable Fate; How It May Be Averted—Leading Expert on Seal Life States The Case— 
Both Nations Are At Fault—First Step In Remedy To Wipe Out Private Interests,” Congressional 
Globe, Apr. 12, 1894, in U.S. Congress, House, Seal Islands of Alaska, 62nd Cong., 1st sess., H. 

Doc. no. 93, 558-63. The Congressional Globe ran from 1833 to 1873, when it was replaced by the 
Congressional Record. 

143 "Fur Seal’s Probable Fate,” The Globe, 559. 

144 Scheffer et al., History of Scientific Study, 12. 

145 Trevor Kincaid, “Harriman Alaska Expedition,” Mazama 2 (Apr. 1901): 70-74. 

146 Johnson and Brown, The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary, 490-91. 

147 “Senator John F. Miller” (obituary), New York Times, Mar. 9, 1886, 2. 

148 Robert Glass Cleland, Biography Resource Center, Galenet, 2003. For a complete outline his¬ 
tory of the Alaska Commercial Company see the Molly Lee section of Nelson H. H. Graburn, 

Molly Lee, and Jean-Loup Rousselot, Catalogue Raisonne of the Alaska Commercial Company 
Collection (Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press, 1996), 19-38. The California Historical Society 
in San Francisco has the company minute books; other records are at the Green Library, Special 
Collections Department, Stanford University. 

149 U.S. Congress, House, Seal Fisheries in Alaska, 44th Cong., 1st sess., Ex. Doc. no. 83, 46. 

150 Certificate of Death no. 220, State of California, County of San Diego. The authors visited Mt. Hope 
Cemetery in Mar. 2009. Although the Cemetery’s records show the approximate location of Miller’s 
gravesite, the authors with the assistance of the cemetery personnel were unable to locate the spe¬ 
cific gravesite of Norman B. Miller. 

151 Louise Pecquet du Bellet, Some Prominent Virginia Families, vol. 4 (Lynchburg, VA, 1907), 353-7; 
U.S. Censuses, 1850-80; and Berkely County Historical Society, Martinsburg, WV (President Don 
C. Wood provided documents regarding the Norman Briscoe Miller family, June 28 and Aug. 16, 
2004); and Norman B. Miller and Juliet Baker Briscoe pedigree charts by Larry D. Rickertsen, http:// 
www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/AF/pedigree_view.asp?recid=45349203&familyid (accessed June 
15, 2004). 

152 “Naturalist Miller Dead,” Death Notice Norman Briscoe Miller, San Diego Union, Apr. 3, 1897, 1. 

153 “Alfred and Elma Milotte; Cinematographers,” Los Angeles Times, Apr. 28, 1989, 26. 

154 Ibid; and Washington State Death Index, Ancestry.com. 

155 “Alfred and Elma Milotte; Cinematographers,” Los Angeles Times, Apr. 28, 1989, 26. 


489 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


156 Ibid. 

157 Internet Movie Data Base, http://www.imdb.com/SeaI Island (accessed May 24, 2009); and “About 
Us,” Milotte Scholarship Fund, http://www.milotte.org (accessed May 24, 2009). The film Seal Island 
is available on VHS tape from Disney Educational Productions, Teacher’s Store. 

158 “Alfred G. Milotte," Biography Resource Center, Narrative Biographies, Galenet. 

159 A. H. Weiler, “By Way of Report,” New York Times, Apr. 18, 1948, 15. 

160 Seal Island, film, 27 min., directed by James Algar, produced by Winston Hibler (Burbank, CA: Walt 
Disney Studios, 1948), http://www.dvdtalk.com/interviews/roy_disney_on_t html (accessed May 24, 
2009). 

161 Biographical sketch provided by Larry Merculieff via email to John Lindsay, Jan. 13, 2007. 

162 The King Eider Hotel is located within the old village area on St. Paul Island. It was condemned in 
2005/2006 and no longer serves a useful purpose, much to the dismay of some local community 
members who see this and other historic buildings disappearing in the Seal Islands National Historic 
Landmark District. 

163 Biographical sketch provided by Larry Merculieff via email to John Lindsay, Jan. 13, 2007. 

164 U.S. Dept, of State, Passport Applications 1906-1925, NARA microfilm publication M1490, no. 
450779, June 27, 1924; U.S. Census, 1900, San Lrancisco, CA, 9A; and “Norman Daniel Morgan,” 
http://trees.ancestry.com/owt/person.aspx?pid= 154849089. 

165 Lewis Lrancis Byington, ed., The History of San Francisco (Chicago: S. J. Clarke, 1931), 460-4. 

166 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 60-63. 

167 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 66. Morton’s deposition stated that during 1877-78 he was 
both Agent-in-Charge and Special Treasury agent. 

168 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 471-3 and 487-8. 

169 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 66. 

170 Ibid., 71. 

171 John Muir National Historic Site, 4202 Alhambra Avenue, Martinez, CA, http://www.nps.gov/his- 
tory/history/online_books/sontag/muir.htm (accessed May 24, 2009); and http://www.nps.gov/his- 
tory/museum/exhibits/jomu/family.html (accessed May 24, 2009). 

172 Johnson and Brown, ed., The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary, vol. 7, 527. 

173 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, May 23, 1881, 216. 

174 John Muir, The Cruise of the Corwin (Boston and New York: Houghton and Mifflin, 1917), 19-23. 
Transcribed from Muir’s journal of his experiences upon the USRC Corwin while on an Arctic expe¬ 
dition in search of American naval officer George W. DeLong and the USS Jeannette, lost in 1877. 

175 H. A. Crafts, “The Late Joseph Murray,” Ft. Collins Courier, Oct. 13, 1898, 4, col. 3. 

176 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1898, 325 and 375; and U.S. Census, 1880. 

177 Crafts, “The Late Joseph Murray.” 

178 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 71. 

179 Crafts, “The Late Joseph Murray.” 

180 The statement cited by Crowley and Murray from p. 32 of the British Commissioner’s report (Her 
Majesty’s Stationary Office. No. 3. Behring Sea Arbitration. Counter-Case Presented on the Part of 
the Government of Her Britannic Majesty to the Tribunal of Arbitration Constituted Under Article I 
of the Treaty Concluded at Washington on the 29th February, 1892, Between Her Britannic Majesty 
and the United States of America. London: Harrison and Sons, Mar. 1893, 32.) was not found by the 
present authors. 

181 Joseph B. Crowley and Joseph Murray, “Letter to Secretary of Treasury, J. G. Carlisle (May 3, 1894),” 
U.S. Congress, House, 53rd Cong., 2nd sess., Ex. Doc. no. 207, 2-3, in U.S. Dept, of Commerce 
and Labor, Alaskan Seal Fisheries: Compilation of Documents and Other Printed Matter Relating 
Thereto, vol. 4 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1906). 

182 Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, Counter-Case Presented on the Part of the Government, 293. 

183 Crowley and Murray, "Letter to Secretary of Treasury,” 3. 

184 “Report of Acting Special Agent D. J. Ainsworth, June 3, 1893,” in U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special 
Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1, 416-7. 

185 “Assistant Agent [Joseph] Murray, Report for 1893, Nov. 1, 1893,” in U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, 
Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1, 425-6. 

186 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1894, 258-61. 


490 





Netsvetov, Iakov ( 1804-1864) 

Born and raised on St. George Island 
First Native Alaskan Russian Orthodox Priest 

Genealogy 

The historical record provided sufficient circumstantial evidence to Russian-American 
historian Dr. Lydia Black to conclude that Iakov Netsvetov was born on St. George Island 
in 1804. 1 Iakov was the son of Egor (Georgii) Vasil’evhich Netsvetov and Mariia, his com¬ 
mon-law wife, from Atkha. The couple legally wed on July 5, 1807. 2 Egor and Mariia had 
two daughters, Elena and Mariia, and three sons, Iakov, Osip, and Anton. 3 Circa 1826, 4 
Iakov Netsvetov married Anna (Semeonovna?), a Russian from the Irkutsk area, born in 
1808. 5 Anna died March 19, 1836, in Sitka at age 28 of uterine cancer. Iakov died July 26, 
1864, also in Sitka. 6 The couple had no children. 7 

Biographical Sketch 

Born and raised on St. George Island, Iakov Netsvetov was one of the most influential 
Creole contributors to the Unangan entry into New World culture. Iakov Netsvetov’s 
father, Egor, was an employee of the Russian-American Company (RAC) who eventu¬ 
ally rose in rank to become the RAC baidarshchik (the head of an iqyax hunting party) 8 
on St. George Island. Iakov lived with his family on St. George until he was about nine¬ 
teen. When his father retired and moved the family to Irkutsk, Russia, Iakov studied at 
the theological seminary there. Archbishop Mikhail of Irkutsk purportedly groomed the 
young Iakov; in 1826 he was made deacon at the Irkutsk Trinity St. Peter Church, and 
in 1828 he became the Atkha (Atka, among the Aleutian Islands) District parish priest. 9 
While in the Atkha District he was confronted by RAC District Manager Petr Egorovich 
Chistiakov, who opposed interracial marriages and presumably the elevated social status 
enjoyed by Creoles. RAC management dissuaded Chistiakov from pursuing his preju- 


491 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


dice, 10 and Father Netsvetov assumed jurisdiction over the RAC’s school at Atkha. By 
1841, Father Netsvetov had converted it to a church-run school. Among his students was 
Innokentii Shaiashnikov (Shaiashnikoff), 11 who in 1848 became the first full-time resi¬ 
dent priest on St. Paul Island. 

Father Netsvetov led an intellectually and physically active life. He collected and 
prepared fish and marine mammal specimens for the museums at St. Petersburg and 
Moscow, and he co-developed with Father Ioann (Ivan) Veniaminov, who served the 
church at Unalashka, an Aleut script that included the various Unangan dialects. 12 
Netsvetov also contributed to Veniaminov’s ethnography of the Aleuts. Separate from 
Father Veniaminov, Netsvetov translated into Aleut the Gospels and various sermons, 
among other writings. He also instructed the Aleut community in church music. 13 

After the death of his wife, Father Netsvetov took monastic vows. In December 
1844, he accepted a missionary assignment to the Yukon, accompanied by Innokentii 
Shaiashnikov, Konstantin Lukin, and a nephew, Vasilii Netsvetov. 14 Dr. Lydia Black wrote: 

Thus Netsvetov, no longer young ... learned new languages, created yet another script, 
built another Church, and another Orthodox community. For close to twenty years, until 
his health and eyesight failed him, he continued to build the foundation of Orthodoxy in 
Native Alaska. Finally, in 1863, he was relieved and brought back to Sitka. 15 

Father Iakov Netsvetov kept journals during his vocation in the Aleutians and the 
Yukon that are conserved within the Alaska Church Division, Library of Congress, in the 
archives of the Diocese of Sitka and Alaska, and at St. Herman’s Theological Seminary, 
Kodiak. 16 

Father Netsvetov was buried at the entrance to Holy Trinity Church, a Tlingit church, 
at Sitka. This church no longer exists. 17 


Nettleton, Stiles Rust ( 1876 - 1942 ) 

Special Agent, Treasury Department, 1889-1890 
Treasury Agent, St. Paul Island, 1890-1891 
Treasury Agent, St. George Island, 1891-1892 

Genealogy 

Stiles Rust Nettleton was born on August 9,1876, in Glyndon, Clay County, Minnesota, to 
Stiles Rust Nettleton and Almeda Orline (Milles) Nettleton. The younger Stiles Nettleton 
married Dott Edith Edna Knowlton on November 22, 1908, in Tacoma, Washington. 
The couple had four children: John Stiles, Dott Edith, Leof Marie, and Katherine Orline. 
Stiles Nettleton died May 18, 1942, at San de Fuca, 18 Whidbey Island, Island County, 
Washington. 19 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Stiles Nettleton provided his deposition for the Tribunal of Arbitration on July 9, 1892, 
before Notary Public A. T. McCargar at Seattle, Washington. The following is an excerpt: 


492 





Biographies N ♦ Netsvetov - Nettleton 



MAP SHOWING THE LOCATION OF THE AMERICAN HERD DURING EVERY MONTH IN THE YEAR. 

Map showing the Location of the American Seal Herd During Every Month of the Year. (Henry Loomis 
Nelson, “The Passing of the Fur-Seal” 463.) 


My place of residence since May, 1891, has been Seattle, Washington. For a period of 
nineteen years prior to that date I was resident of the State of Minnesota. My occupation 
was that of a real estate and investment broker. In the autumn of 1889 I went to the island 
of St. Paul, one of the Pribilof group, as a special agent of the Treasury Department. In 
August, 1890,1 returned to the States and stayed until the spring of 1891, when I returned 
to said island of St. Paul. I remained there during the months of June and July of that year, 
and was then transferred to the island of St. George, where I remained until June, 1892. 20 

Newspaper Story 

After Stiles Nettleton arrived home in July 1892, he was interviewed by the New York 
Times about the scarcity of seals on the Pribilof Islands and about his experiences as a 
Seal Islands agent. 

Seattle, Washington, July 14 - S.R. Nettleton, who for two seasons has been special agent 
of the Treasury Department on the Pribilof Islands, has arrived in this city having come 
down from Bering Sea on the Albatross, the ship of the United States Fish Commission. 

Mr. Nettleton’s knowledge of the sealing business, and of the situation at the two great 
rookeries, or breeding places, of the seal in the Bering Sea, is full and exact, for he spent 
one year as the Government’s agent at St. Paul, and his second year as the agent at St. 

George. He left the islands on June 10, and he says that up to the time of his departure but 
few seals had made their appearance. 

As a rule, the rookeries are pretty’ well occupied by the first week in June, but this year so 
few seals had come that the place was practically deserted. The winter, however, has been 
unusually backward, and everything is behind; so it may be that later the seals will come 
along as usual. The vessels of the Government fleet were instructed to take particular 
notice of the presence of seals in the waters of the Pacific Ocean between Cape Flattery and 
the Aleutian Islands. In making the cruise each vessel was assigned a certain route, so that 


493 





































Pribilof Islands: The People 


a large area of the North Pacific was covered, and without exception the reports from the 
vessels show that the seals are uncommonly scarce. None at all are seen west of Kadiak [sic] 

Island, a fact considered by seal experts as remarkable. 

In speaking of the matter Mr. Nettleton says: There is no disguising the truth that the 
seals are rapidly disappearing. The Alaska Commercial Company, which once had the 
lease of the business on the islands, was allowed to kill 100,000 annually, but two years 
ago the North American Commercial Company, which secured the lease at that time, was 
restricted to 60,000. In that year, however, the company could find but 32,000 seals. Last 
year, according to an agreement with Great Britain, but 7,500 were to be killed as food for 
the natives. How many there will be this season I cannot tell, though, as I have said, the 
indications are not promising. 

The only way I can account for the disappearance of the animals is their destruction by 
the sealers in the North Pacific and Bering Sea. During the last few years the raids on the 
rookeries have taken but few animals, but the sealing fleet, which now numbers 122 vessels, 
follows the seals along the coast of California, Oregon, and Washington, across from the 
Straits of Fuca to Unimak Pass and into Bering Sea killing thousands of them, the females 
heavy with young are slower and clumsier than the males and spend more time in resting 
on the surface of the water. Thus it happens that these are more likely than any others of 
the herd to fall a prey to the sealers, and each slaughter of a mother means the death of two 
seals. 

When the pups are born at the rookeries the mothers leave them after a few days to go to 
the fishing grounds for food. The poachers watch for the mothers on these trips, and when 
the female is killed the little pup dies on the rocks of St. Paul or St. George. 

If the sealers are put out of Bering Sea by the United States, they will yet remain in the 
North Pacific Ocean to carry on the work of destruction. The only way they can be put off 
the ocean is by an international agreement. Before such an arrangement as that is reached I 
fear that all the seals will be killed. 

In speaking of the islands Mr. Nettleton said: The weather is unpleasant there because a 
heavy fog prevails nearly all the time. I suppose that we do not have more than thirty clear 
days in the course of a whole year. The climate is not severe, for during my first Winter, 
when I was at St. Paul Island, the thermometer only went to 9 degrees above zero on our 
coldest day, but last Winter, on St. George, the temperature fell to 11 degrees below. 

There are now about 200 natives, Aleuts, on St. Paul and 100 on St. George. They are 
peaceful and inoffensive people. During my residence on the islands I was the sole 
representative of law and authority, and yet I had no difficulty whatever in maintaining 
order. The Aleuts there are not so debauched and diseased as the natives on the mainland 
of Alaska, and still they are very fond of a vile beer they brew. We have had to restrict the 
amount of sugar and molasses they buy, for they will use these materials for making their 
beer. 21 

Mrs. Nettleton taught school on St. George during her husband’s tenure as an as¬ 
sistant agent. 22 


494 



Biographies N ♦ Nettleton - Niebaum 


Niebaum (Nybom), Gustave (Gustaf) Ferdinand ( 1842-1908) 

Ship Captain and Owner 
Vice-President, Alaska Commercial Company 
President, Alaska Commercial Company, 1902-1908 
President, Niebaum Vineyard 
President, Alaska Packers Association 23 

Genealogy 

Gustave Ferdinand Nybom (Niebaum) was 
born on August 31, 1842, at Helsingfors (now 
Helsinki), Finland to Gustaf Nybom, “a police 
official of Swedish and Baltic-German stock,” 24 
and Anna Johanna (Nyman) Nybom (b. circa 
1909; m. November 18, 1838). Gustaf Nybom 
died August 24, 1846 of lungsot (tuberculosis). 25 
According to biographer Wilson Fiske Erskine, 

Nybom changed the spelling of his name to the 
German “Niebaum” because he thought it ap¬ 
peared more American and German Jewish and 
would make a more positive impression upon 
businessmen Louis Sloss, Louis Gerstle, and 
August Wasserman, with whom Nybom negoti¬ 
ated his terms for what would become the Alaska 
Commercial Company. 26 

Biographer Erskine makes a telling observa- 
, - , Gustaf F. Nybom. (Gun-Marie Wiis/ 

tion about Niebaum s rise from social ignorance: Swedish Finn Historical Society.) 

Niebaum had been born in Helsingfors when Finland was a semi-independent Grand 
Duchy. He was a descendant of people known for their aggressiveness, hardihood, 
independence of spirit, and avoidance of Jews. When he discovered that a considerable 
portion of the financial district of San Francisco was peopled by Jews, he was at first 
skeptical about approaching any of them. In later years he laughed about this and admitted 
that he knew nothing about them aside from traditions from his home country. 27 

Niebaum had one son, Alexander Alexis, or “Nick,” born in Alaska in April 1865. 
Gustave’s wife died while Nick was very young, so when Nick was about 15, his father “gave 
the youth into custody of Dr. Hugh H. McIntyre [Superintendent, Alaska Commercial 
Company on St. Paul Island] to bring him to Vermont. Nick attended the local high 
school in Vermont, and later the University of Vermont and Princeton.” 28 

In 1873 Niebaum was married a second time, to German-American Suzanne 
Shingleberger (aka Susan and Susie; died March 1936), 29 daughter of William Prancis 
Shingleberger and Leah Prances (Stevens) Shingleberger of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 
Gustave Niebaum died August 5, 1908. 30 Gustave and Susan had no children; five years 
after Gustave’s death, Susan Niebaum assumed responsibility for her brother’s children. 31 



495 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


Biographical Sketch 

After graduating in 1858 from a gymnasium, Europe’s equivalent of an American high 
school, Gustave Nybom became a cabin boy on a Russian-American Company ship sail¬ 
ing to Alaska. 32 He enrolled in Helsinki’s Nautical Institute after returning home, and 
graduated from the institute at nineteen. He secured his master’s papers and in 1864, at 
the age of twenty-two, commanded a ship also in the service of the Russian-American 
Company sailing to Alaska. 33 Nybom became a citizen of the United States under the 
provisions of Article III of the Treaty of Cession, 34 and during that time he changed the 
spelling of his name to “Niebaum.” 

Gustave Niebaum became a multimillionaire as a result of his Pribilof Islands business 
dealings. He applied this wealth and his business acumen to fulfilling his dreams. In 1880, 
for $48,000, Gustave and Suzanne purchased the Inglenook, a marginally successful sani¬ 
tarium and vineyard in Rutherford, California, in the Napa Valley, along with numerous 
adjacent parcels of land totaling 1,000 acres. Gustave’s intention for the property was to 
own a world-class winery. He hired Hamden McIntyre, an engineer who built the Pribilof 
Islands sealing plant and who also had extensive viticulture experience. In 1881, McIntyre 
became Inglenook’s first resident general manager; he proceeded to design and construct 
the estate’s first winery and cellars. Within this outstanding physical plant, “Niebaum 
aged his wine more than his competitors, and he pioneered estate bottling. Instead of 
selling his wine to wholesalers in bulk (casks), as was the custom, he sold only ‘in glass.’ 
Every bottle bore his distinctive label and logo, plus a branded cork secured with wire.” 35 

In 1964, Niebaum’s heirs sold the Inglenook estate to United Vintners, who subse¬ 
quently sold to Alcoholic Beverages of Heublein, Inc. In 1975, filmmaker Francis Ford 
Coppola purchased the Niebaum home and a small portion of the vineyard, but the 
larger Inglenook vineyard remained with Heublein. Both Coppola and Heublein offered 
wine collections named after Gustave Niebaum. 36 By the 1990s, Francis Ford Coppola 
and his wife Eleanor had acquired the entire Niebaum estate and winery and formed the 
Niebaum-Coppola Estate Winery, Napa Valley, California. In 2008, under the Rubicon 
label, the Coppolas continue to follow Niebaum’s dream of a world-class winery. 

Because he treated the winery as a hobby and not a business, Niebaum never profited 
from it. 37 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Gustave Niebaum provided his deposition, excerpted below, to the Tribunal of Arbitration 
on May 13, 1892, before Clement Bennett at San Francisco, California. 

I am 50 years old, a resident of San Francisco and a merchant and ship owner. 

I was born in Helsingfors, Finland, and became an American citizen by the transfer of 
Alaska to the United States. I entered the service of the Russian-American Commercial 
[sic] Company in 1858, and was in command of one of their vessels from 1866 until the 
cession of Alaska to the United States. I am, and have been for several years past, vice- 
president and a director of the Alaska Commercial Company, and a member of the firm 
of Hutchinson, Kohl & Co., the former lessees, respectively, of the Alaska and Siberian 
sealeries. 


496 





i No. 


iBBUeb 




UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 


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PtP Jcioiyn : and (4at od ttndd /onr^ tint ^ai(4. a dry It t art and doyadty to (4r Mm*, any otdtnanco, itOedttihn, or- > /aw 
of any <S&tato, Qtontvn/wn. of? ~/ryi)dn/nto to t/r eonttaty notnnidstandtny : and^uit4err > , tdat of do t4u wtt4 a fad/ 
deteiminatum. yddyo, and/luiyoif. untdout any nunta/ ioioiaat/on on> unman wdattoovofl{ and ^uit4*fi, (4at of tvtdd 
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Fivo dollar0 tax, a* impound by law, will be required, in United State* Currency, with eaoh application. 

When husband, wife, minor children, and servant* expect to travel together, a single passport for the whole will suffice. 
For any other person in the party a separate passport will be requir ed. _ _ _I 


Gustave Niebaum’s U.S. passport application, December 3, 1870. 


497 









































Pribilof Islands: The People 


In these various positions the care and management of seal rookeries and system and 
methods of killing seals and curing and transporting their skins to market has been my 
study. I visited the Pribilof Islands in 1867 and had charge of seal killing there in 1868 and 
1869. When the Alaska Commercial Company obtained the lease in 1870, of the right to 
take seals for their skins, I instructed the superintendent and agents of the company in 
regard to the way in which the work should be done, and outlined to them the policy to be 
pursued in the future. 38 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Gustave Nybom was in Victoria, British Columbia, during the winter of 1866, when news 
of the possible Alaska purchase first appeared in newspapers. He returned to Sitka the 
next spring and resigned his position with the Russian-American Company. With four 
of his old comrades he formed a business called Hansen, Nybom & Co. which included 
partners Alexander Hansen and O. Osche. 39 In 1885, he recalled: 

We prepared ourselves for sea as soon as we could and left there in November sometime. 

Went to the westward for the purpose of landing on the Seal Islands. We landed on St. 

Pauls’ [sic] Island after a good deal of trouble and marched ashore in a snow storm on 
Christmas Eve [1867]. 40 Up to that date it had been considered impossible to sail there as 
late in the season as that. I had taken the trouble to inform myself on this point the year 
previous and found it was possible to reach there by that time. We made arrangements 
immediately on landing there to establish a trading post and leave a man in charge and 
commence sealing operations for the coming season. We succeeded in getting about 10,000 
seal skins and left them and went to Ounalaska and established a trading post there. From 
there I went to Unga and from there San Francisco. 41 

“The documents on file in the Customs House of San Francisco report the entry of 
the brig Constantine of 122.57 register tons, 42 on March 2, 1867 . . . Captain Gustave 
Ferdinand Nybom owner.” 43 Nybom and the Constantine arrived at the docks of San 
Francisco on March 2, 1867, after first acquiring the sealskins from the Pribilof Islands 
prior to the formal acquisition of the territory by the Americans. The brig was laden 
with valuable cargo including “land and pelagic seal furs, pickled salmon, hides, etc. The 
cargo represented a cross section of the products that had attracted the Russians to North 
America one hundred years or more before. . . . Surviving records show the combined 
value of sea otter, seal, fox, ermine and other skins, and numerous casks of salted and 
pickled fish to be approximately $600,000.00, an imposing sum and a sizeable sample.” 44 

Gustave Nybom returned to the Pribilofs in 1868 with great expectations for secur¬ 
ing more windfall profits but learned that others had landed on the islands with the same 
intentions. The times must have been particularly stressful for the Aleuts who were ex¬ 
pected to undertake the harvesting for these piratical entrepreneurs, although reportedly 
the Natives were paid for their labor (about 35 cents per sealskin). Nybom, at six feet 
two and a half inches and of Viking bearing, 45 proved himself a formidable adversary. He 
purchased 132,000 pelts on St. Paul and 65,000 on St. George. 46 The competition waned 
in 1869 through successful lobbying by Hayward Hutchinson to have the islands con¬ 
trolled by the U.S. Department of War and the Treasury Department. Niebaum, formerly 
Nybom, became a significant shareholder, along with Hayward Hutchinson, in the Alaska 
Commercial Company. 47 


498 




Biographies N ♦ Niebaum - Noyes 


Noyes, Dr. Luman A. (b. 1840 ) 

Physician, Alaska Commercial Company, St. George Island, 1880-1883 and 1885-1889 
Physician, Alaska Commercial Company, St. Paul Island, 1883-1884 
Acting Assistant Treasury Agent, St. George Island, 1886-1887 
Physician, North American Commercial Company, St. George Island, 1890-1905 

Genealogy 

Luman A. Noyes was born on January 26, 1840, in Tunbridge, Orange County, Vermont, 
to Stephen Noyes and Julia A. (Gushia) Noyes. He enlisted as an assistant surgeon with 
the Union Army in April 1863 and served for one month. Luman Noyes and Louise R. 
Boyle were married in 1865, at Chelsea, Vermont, and settled in Randolph, Vermont. 
Luman and Louise had two daughters, Blanch and Anna, both born in Vermont. 48 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Luman Noyes deposed before the Tribunal of Arbitration on June 11, 1892, before 
Treasury Agent-in-Charge William H. Williams at St. George Island, Alaska. Excerpts 
follow: 

I am a native American, and my home is in Randolph, VT. I am 52 years of age and a 
physician by profession. 

In 1880 I entered the service of the lessees of the Pribilof Islands as resident physician at 
the seal islands, and I have resided here continuously ever since, excepting an occasional 
visit to my home, for a few months in winter, once or twice since 1880. 

From June 1880 to August 1883,1 was on St. George and from 1883 to 1884 I was on St. 

Paul Island. I then returned to St. George, where I have resided ever since.... 

In addition to my services as physician, I have occasionally taught the school on St. 

George, and I have kept the books and accounts for many years for the lessees on the same 
island ... and I acted as assistant special agent. 

In winter the islands are sometimes surrounded by broken ice, which comes from the 
north, and it will come and go with the tide and currents, generally from January to April, 
but occasionally remaining later, and again not appearing at all. 

The most experienced men do the skinning, and after them come the women and children 
who carry off the carcasses for food, and the fat or blubber for winter fuel. 49 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

In 1883, Assistant Treasury Agent J. P. Manchester had hired on with the understanding 
of Acting Secretary of the Treasury Charles S. Fairchild that he could return home at the 
end of the sealing season on St. George Island. Likewise, Agent-in-Charge George Tingle 
and Assistant Agent-in-Charge T. F. Ryan, also on St. George, had intended to take leave 
at the end of the 1883 season, but Agent Tingle had not the authority to grant or deny 
leave. 50 

In the dilemma and without any authority of law, but relying on the authority contained 

in your letter of April 30_I appointed Dr. L.A. Noyes, a Democrat in politics, acting 

assistant Treasury agent, subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, and 


499 







Pribilof Islands: The People 



Standing, left to right: Schoolmaster William D. J. Ainsworth; Joseph Crowley; (?); Joseph Murray; (?); 
Joseph Stanley-Brown; and Dr. Noyes, outside Government House, St. Paul Island. (AMNH Special 
Collections, Chichester Coll., HDC263, neg. 034957.) 


placed him in charge of St. George Island. Dr. Noyes is the Alaska Commercial Company’s 
physician on this island, and was an applicant for the vacant assistant Treasury agency at 
the time Mr. Manchester was appointed. His application, he informs me, was indorsed by, 
among others, Hon. B.B. Smalley and Hon. Hiram Atkins, of Vermont. 

I regard it as a fortunate circumstance that a proper and available man was here whom 
I could secure to go to St. George and assume the duties of the office, as it will not do 
to leave the islands without someone whom the natives are accustomed to call “the 
Government.” I therefore hope my action in the premises will be approved and that some 
authority of law will be found to pay Dr. Noyes for his services until he is relieved from duty 
by the return of the absent Treasury agents or the order of the Secretary of the Treasury. 51 

Congressman Foster of Vermont submitted consideration for Noyes’ claim, which 
stated in part: 

Dr. Noyes reluctantly accepted the appointment, for he had been eighteen months away 
from home. The appointment was made in due form and he took the oath of office. He 
removed from St Paul to St. George and performed duty from August 1, 1886, to June 1, 

1887, a period of ten months, which at $2,190 per annum ($6 per day), the regular pay of 
Treasury agents at that time, would amount to $1,819, no part of which sum he has ever 
received. 52 

Dr. Hugh H. McIntyre sent several letters justifying and urging the government to 
make good on its agent’s promise to pay Dr. Noyes for providing government oversight 


500 












Biographies N ♦ Noyes 



Dr. Noyes (center) and Harry D. Chichester (right), playing cribbage with beautiful bone cribbage 
boards. (AMNH Special Collections, Chichester Coll., HDC265, neg. 034958.) 


on St. George Island. McIntyre’s letter also related Dr. Noyes’ reluctance yet his sense of 
duty to accept Agent Tingle’s call for help. 

He accepted Mr. Tingle’s offer very reluctantly, and did so only upon his [Tingle’s] 
assurance that he would surely be paid by the Department for his service. In giving this 
assurance, Mr. Tingle relied upon the precedent established in 1870, when Special Treasury 
Agent Charles Bryant appointed Samuel Falconer acting assistant agent in the same place 
where Dr. Noyes was afterwards stationed and under similar circumstances. In this case the 
appointment of Mr. Falconer was recognized by the Department as a necessity, and he was 
duly paid for his services. 53 

The issue of Dr. Noyes’ pay received considerable attention, with supporters, detrac¬ 
tors, and attorneys weighing in on the question over at least a five-year period. Legal 
counsel opined several times, as exemplified by Treasury Acting Solicitor F. A. Reeve: 

The appointment, though irregular, could now be approved by the Secretary of the 
Treasury if, in the first instance, he had the authority of law to make the same.... 

Section 1760, Revised Statutes, directs that “No money shall be paid from the Treasury to 
any person acting or assuming to act as an officer, civil, military, or existing law, unless such 
office is subsequently sanctioned by law. 54 


501 




















Pribilof Islands: The People 


Reeve, like others, regretfully concluded that Dr. Noyes could not be paid by the gov¬ 
ernment. 55 The last correspondence the present authors examined on the matter, dated 
February 14, 1893, came from Acting Treasury Secretary O. L. Spaulding, who support¬ 
ed the introduction of legislation (H.R. 8756) to provide Dr. Noyes with his just due as 
Acting Assistant Treasury Agent during 1886-1887. 56 

Following his temporary duty as Acting Assistant Agent on St. George Island, Dr. 
Noyes continued his position as physician on St. George with the Alaska Commercial 
Company. In 1890, he joined the new island lessee on St. George, the North American 
Commercial Company, which he served until his resignation in August 1905.’ 


1 Iakov Netsvetov, The Journals of Iakov Netsvetov: The Atkha Years, 1828-1844, ed. Lydia T. Black 
(Kingston, ON: Brown & Martin, 1980), xvi. 

2 Richard A. Pierce, Russian America: A Biographical Dictionary (Kingston, ON: Limestone Press, 
1990), 380. 

3 Netsvetov, The Journals, xvi and xviii, and Pierce, Russian America, 380, disagree on the number of 
children born to the couple. The editor, Dr. Lydia Black concluded the couple had only four surviv¬ 
ing children, including one daughter, Elena, whereas Pierce stated that they had two daughters, who 
were married and eventually resided at Sitka. 

4 Netsvetov, The Journals, xix. 

5 Netsvetov, The Journals, 332. 

6 Ibid., 382. 

7 Ibid., xv-xix. 

8 Katerina G. Solovjova and Aleksandra A. Vovnyanko, The Fur Rush (Anchorage: Phenix), 339, 
defined “baidarshchik" as the leader of a baidarka or iqyax hunting party, whereas Pierce, Russian 
America, 380, suggested that a “ baidarshchik ” was the leader of a hunting party regardless of 
whether the hunting was conducted on land or on the water. The authors make the assumption 
that Netsvetov was referred to as a baidarshchik for his role in land-harvesting seals, as they did 
not find any reference to seal hunting from an iqyax on the Pribilofs. Basil Dmytryshyn and E. A. P. 
Crownhart-Vaughan, eds., The End of Russian America: Captain R N. Golovin’s Last Report, 1862 
(Portland: Oregon Historical Society, 1979), 231, defined the term as “owner or skilled steersman of 
a baidara; overseer of a crew or group of baidaras.” 

9 Pierce, Russian America, 381. 

10 Ibid. 

11 Ibid. 

12 Dr. Lydia Black, in Netsvetov, The Journals, xxi; and Pierce, Russian America, 382. 

13 Netsvetov, The Journals, xxi-xxii. 

14 Netsvetov, The Journals, xxiv; and Pierce, Russian America, 382. 

15 Netsvetov, The Journals, xxiv. 

16 Pierce, Russian America, 383. 

17 Ibid. 

18 San de Fuca was a small town on the shore of Penn’s Cove, Whidbey Island, Washington, during the 
late 19th and early 20th centuries; the town no longer exists, http://www.waymarking.com/way- 
marks/WM3QXR (accessed May 23, 2009). 

19 Bruce Kemp, “Kemp/Self lines,” Ancestry.com. A group of developers changed the name of Coveland 
at the head of Penn’s Cove, Whidbey Island, to San de Fuca in 1888, “because of its proximity to 

the Straits of Juan de Fuca.” “Island County—Thumbnail History,” http://historylink.org/index. 
cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=7523 (accessed Jan 26, 2009). 

20 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, convened at Paris 
under the Treaty between the United States of America and Great Britain, concluded at Washington 
February 29, 1892, for the determination of questions between the two governments concerning the 


502 






Biographies N ♦ Noyes - Notes 


jurisdictional rights of the United States in the waters of Bering Sea, vol. 3 (Washington, DC: GPO, 
1895), 74. 

21 “Seals Becoming Scarce,” New York Times, July 15, 1892, 9. 

22 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries and General Resources of 
Alaska (Washington, DC: GPO, 1898) vol. 1, 270 and 271. 

23 Wilson Fiske Erskine, “Captain Niebaum of Alaska,” Explorers Journal 49, no. 3 (1962): 12, wrote 
“Pioneers in the salmon canning industry was one of Niebaum’s ideas, an idea still going strong 
today.” Niebaum wrote: “We expect to have 15,000 cans of salmon this year. Last year we had four 
thousand cans and the fish were very good indeed.... I employ Chinese labor. We took them up 
there from here [San Francisco], We couldn’t rely on the natives.... There are only two canner¬ 
ies up there one of which I happen to be the president of. It is located at Ecciluder” [sic; Excelsior, 
in Akutan Pass, NE of Unalaska], Gustave Niebaum statement, “Sealing in Alaska,” 1884, Bancroft 
Library, H. H. Bancroft Coll., Bancroft MSS (non-circulating), microfilm bneg 114: 7, P-K32, 50-2. 
[Note: bneg 114: 7, P-K32 is a handwritten citation provided by the Bancroft Library archivist. 
http://berkeley.worldcat.org/oclc/25912055&referer=brief_results (accessed Apr. 9, 2009) cited 
BANC MSS P-K, 32 positive microfilm, range box P-K, 23-32.] 

24 Richard H. Dillon, “American National Biography Online,” http://www.anb.org/update.html (ac¬ 
cessed Jan. 6, 2003). 

25 The Genealogical Society of Finland, HisKi project, http://hiski.genealogia.fi/hiski/ltyy7p?en+0084+ 
kastetut+20212 (accessed Aug. 10, 2009). 

26 Erskine, “Captain Niebaum of Alaska,” 7 and 11; but according to http://www.niebaum-coppola. 
com/timeline (accessed Apr. 7, 2009), Gustave Nybom changed his name to Niebaum in 1873, after 
formalizing his business relationships with the ACC. A similar perspective was offered by K-G Olin, 
“The Cabin Boy who became a Millionaire, Part Two,” The Swedish Finn Historical Society Quarterly 
7, no. 2 (1998): 44. 

27 Erskine, “Captain Niebaum of Alaska,” 11. 

28 Luther B. Johnson, Eighty Years of It 1869-1949 (Randolph, VT: Haggett, 1949), 135. Alexander 
Alexis Niebaum died Feb. 21, 1943 at Randolph, Vermont (Standard Certificate of Death, State of 
Vermont, State File no. 81 issued July 27, 2009, Assistant Town Clerk, Randolph, Vermont). 

29 Shingleberger’s given name was Suzanne; http://www.familysearch.org cited Suzanne, although she 
was also called “Susie” (U.S. Census, 1880, Household Record). However, most popular accounts 
refer to her as “Susan.” 

30 Pierce, Russian America, 386; and Olin, “The Cabin Boy, Part Two,” 45, gave Aug. 5, 1908, as the date 
of Niebaum’s death. 

31 Steven Kolpan, A Sense of Place (NY: Routledge, 1999), 26, wrote that Mrs. Niebaum’s brother, John, 
put his children in his sister’s care after he became a widower; whereas Olin, “The Cabin Boy, Part 
Two,” 45, stated that both Mrs. Niebaum’s brother and his wife died during an epidemic and that 
together, Gustave and Susan Niebaum adopted their children. 

32 Olin, “The Cabin Boy,” 12; and Kolpan, A Sense of Place, 20-21. 

33 Kolpan, A Sense of Place, 21. 

34 U.S. Dept, of State, Passport Applications, Jan. 2, 1906-Mar. 31, 1925, NARA microfilm publication 
M1490), passport no. 9141 issued Dec. 3, 1870. 

35 Richard H. Dillon, “Gustave Ferdinand Niebaum,” American National Biography, http://www.anb. 
org (accessed Apr. 7, 2009); and Kolpan, A Sense of Place, 17-48. 

36 Olin, “The Cabin Boy, Part Two,” 46. Olin apparently misspelled Heublein as “Heiblein.” 

37 Kolpan, A Sense of Place, 47. 

38 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 76-77. 

39 Olin, “The Cabin Boy,” 13. 

40 Niebaum recalled the event differently in his statement of 1884: “We landed on St. Paul’s Island on 
the 17th of December of the same year [1867], We had considerable difficulty landing there because 
it was under Russian control, but being an old employee of the company I was allowed to land 

and we established ourselves ... there and then ... we established two agents up there.” Gustave 
Niebaum Statement, “Sealing in Alaska,” 1884. 

41 Gustave Niebaum autobiographical statement, Sept. 22, 1885, Bancroft Library, H. H. Bancroft Coll., 
microfilm bneg 114: 8, P-K38, 7-9. 

42 Naval Officer Pavel Golovin listed the Russian ships in Russian America in 1860, including the brig 


503 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


Velikii Kniza Konstantin as 170 tonnes; Dmytryshyn et al., The End of Russian America, 146. The 
vessel was built in Boston and purchased in 1840 at Valparaiso, Chile. Presumably this was the same 
vessel that Nybom bought from the Russian-American Company. 

43 Erskine, “Captain Niebaum of Alaska,” 6. 

44 Ibid., 10. 

45 Ibid., 7. 

46 Olin, “The Cabin Boy,” 13. 

47 Erskine, “Captain Niebaum of Alaska,” 7; and Olin, “The Cabin Boy,” 13. 

48 U.S. Censuses, 1850-1900; “American Civil War Soldiers Military Records,” Ancestry.com (accessed 
Feb. 27, 2006); “Thomas Pierce of Charlestown, MA,” http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp 
(accessed Feb. 27, 2006); and “Richard L. Pierce,” Ancestry.com (accessed Feb. 27, 2006). 

49 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 79-80 and 82. 

50 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1, 189. 

51 Ibid. 

52 U.S. Congress, House, “Committee on Claims recommend payment of Dr. F.A. Noyes for services 
rendered in the capacity of a quasi-Treasury agent on St. George Island during the winter of 1886- 
87,” 57th Cong., 2nd sess., H. Rep. 3150, Jan. 14, 1903, 2, in U.S. Dept, of Commerce and Fabor, 
Alaskan Seal Fisheries, Compilation of Documents and Other Printed Matter Relating Thereto, vol. 8 
(Washington, DC: GPO, 1906). 

53 Ibid., 3. 

54 Ibid., 3. 

55 Ibid., 5. 

56 Ibid., 1-6. 

57 St. Paul Island Agent’s Fog, Aug. 4, 1905, 252; and U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 80. 



The Yillage. Paul’s Jsland. 

Looking south over the Village cove— Julv 17, 1872. 


The Village. St. Paul’s Island. Looking South over the Village Cove—July 17, 1872. Henry Wood Elliott, 
published in his 1873 Report on the Prybilov Group, or Seal Islands of Alaska. 


504 












o 


Osgood, Wilfred Hudson ( 1875 - 1947 ) 

Member, 1914 Commission to Study Fur-Seal Herds on Pribilof Islands 
Curator of Birds and Mammals, Field Museum of Natural History 

Genealogy 

Wilfred H. Osgood was born on December 8, 1875, at Rochester, 

New Hampshire, to Marion Hudson Osgood, a watchmaker, and 
his wife, Harriet Amanda (Hacker) Osgood. Wilfred was one of 
five siblings. The others were Alice (became Mrs. Alice Gay), C. 

Sumner, Hattibel, and Marion (married Kenneth Dowie). Wilfred 
Osgood died “after a short illness” at the Billings Memorial 
Hospital, Chicago, Illinois, June 20, 1947. 1 

Biographical Sketch 

The Osgood family left New Hampshire for California in 1883, 
while Wilfred was still a young boy. He received his education at 
Stanford University, where he majored in fishery science under David Starr Jordan. He 
graduated in 1899 and earned a PhD from the University of Chicago in 1918. 

Dr. Osgood was a biologist with the United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau 
of Biological Survey from 1897 to 1909 and had charge of the United States biological 
investigation in Alaska from 1899 to 1909. He left that position to become assistant curator 
and within twelve years he was chief curator in the Department of Zoology with the Field 
Museum of Natural History at Chicago, Illinois. 

He was recognized as one of the country’s leading zoologists, specializing in the field of 
mammals and also was a lexicographer and contributor to encyclopedias. 2 

Osgood was the author of 205 publications. He died in 1947. 3 



Wilfred H. Osgood, 

1927. (Library of 
Congress, DN-0084171.) 


505 








Pribilof Islands: The People 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

Wilfred Osgood was appointed by Secretary 
of Commerce William C. Redfield as one of a 
three-member scientific team representing the 
United States in 1914 to study the northern fur- 
seal herds. The other U.S. team members were 
George H. Parker of Harvard University and 
Edward A. Preble, Bureau of Biological Survey, 
Department of Agriculture. The three men 
were nominated by prestigious institutions and 
selected by the government foremost because 
they had not been “in any way concerned with 
fur seals or the fur-seal controversy.” These men 
were directed “to ascertain the actual state of the 
Alaskan seal herd in 1914, and to make that con¬ 
dition known to the department, with recommendations touching all important admin¬ 
istrative matters growing out of the international, economic, and biological relations of 
the seal herd.” 4 They proceeded as temporary special assistants of the Bureau of Fisheries 
to the Pribilof Islands in the summer of 1914 and were joined by James Macoun and B. W. 
Harmon of Canada and Dr. T. Kitahara of Japan. 5 Osgood, Preble, and Parker published 
their findings in “The Fur Seals and Other Fife of the Pribilof Islands, Alaska in 1914.” 

The majority of the U.S. team’s report focused on Pribilof Islands fur seals and other 
wildlife, but fifteen pages spoke of the Aleut population on the islands, as directed by the 
Secretary of Commerce: 



Wilfred Osgood inspecting a seal carcass on a St. Paul Island killing ground. (USUAFV6-45, Pribilof 
Islands Photographs, 1914, 1976-0063-00113, Archives, Alaska and Polar Regions Coll., Rasmuson' 
Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.) 


4 

/9/W 



Murre colony on Walrus Island, Pribilof 
Islands, 1914. (Photo: Wilfred Osgood. 
California Academy of Sciences, G Dallas 
Hanna Coll., 71.) 


506 













Biographies O ♦ Osgood - Otis 


So as your other duties permit, I am particularly desirous that you should give attention to 
the native inhabitants and determine what changes, if any, should be made in the relations 
of the Government to their social, educational, sanitary, business, and other interests. 6 

Following are the conclusions drawn from “The Natives” section of the team’s 
report. 

It will be seen from the foregoing account that the people of the Pribilof Islands, though 
not natives, have for so long made the islands their home that they know and recognize 
no other. They are a people still in a state of semicivilization, and considering their limited 
environment they seem to be as well able to embrace its advantages and as successful in 
combating its disadvantages as is usual among such peoples. They constitute a heritage 
acquired by the United States with the islands and their valuable wild inhabitants, and 
considerations of economy and of humanity demand that they be accepted as such 
and managed with all possible wisdom and fairness. Many of the details of the present 
system of dealing with them are survivals of the past, and the conditions under which 
they developed are no longer existent. Many changes and improvements have been 
recommended by the agents and other officials, but in most cases they have not been 
accomplished, either on account of controversy, sudden and radical changes of regime, or 
small appropriations. Many changes in the methods of dealing with the natives seem to be 
necessary. Such changes should be instituted gradually, and in such a way that the native 
will be able to perceive their fairness and expediency. In some respects they deserve more 
liberal treatment; in others they must be dealt with more firmly. In their management a 
great deal will depend on the personality of the officials in charge. 

The changes in methods which seem desirable have been pointed out in the foregoing 
pages. It is believed that the work necessary to put the sealing plan on an efficient basis and 
the resumption in the near future of commercial sealing, accompanied by a better system 
of compensation, and the opportunity of exchanging the reward of their labor according 
to their desires will help to make the native self-respecting and gradually lead to their 
betterment in many directions. By such course the people of the islands may become an 
entirely self-supporting, efficient, and happy community. 7 

Osgood and his team accomplished what Secretary Redfield had requested, but 
Redfield did not necessarily care to carry out all of their recommendations. The former 
Commissioner of the Fur-Seal Commission, Dr. David Starr Jordan, put forward his 
thoughts on Redfield’s stance. 

Their carefully prepared report agreed in every respect with the findings of previous 
commissions, but Redfield paid no attention to its recommendations. I need go no further 
into these details. They afford but one more example of the failure of a certain class of 
officials to take advantage of expert knowledge. 8 


Otis, Harrison Gray (1837-1917) 

Special Agent, Department of the Treasury, 1879-1881 
Editor/Owner, Los Angeles Daily Times 

Genealogy 

Harrison Gray Otis was the son of Stephen and Sarah Otis. 

Brevet Lieut. Col. Harrison Gray Otis is the son of Stephen and Sarah [Dyer 9 ] Otis, who 
were pioneer citizens of Ohio, and was born near Marietta [Ohio] February 10, 1837. In 
the year 1800 his father, at the age of sixteen, emigrated to the far West from Vermont 


507 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


and settled in the “Ohio Company’s Purchase” at 
Marietta, then just emerging from the condition 
of a frontier “blockhouse” post. His mother was a 
native of Nova Scotia... . 10 

Mrs. Otis, who is a leading member of the [Los 
Angeles] Times’ staff, was Miss Eliza A. Wetherby 
[Eliza Ann Weatherbee 11 ]. She married Mr. Otis at 
Lowell, Ohio, September 11, 1859. They have three 
daughters living: Mrs. Lilian [sic] Otis McPherron, 
of Redlands; Miss Marian Otis, secretary of the 
Times-Mirror Company, and Mrs. Mabel Otis 
Booth, of Berkeley, Cal. 12 

Harrison’s wife, Eliza Wetherby, was born to 
Nancy Hyde and Charles Thomas Weatherbee on 
August 16, 1833, in Walpole, Cheshire County, 
New Hampshire. 13 Harrison and Eliza had five 
children: Harrison Gray (born May 1861; died 
December 1861); Beulah Lillian (born September 
22, 1864; died 1925); Emma Marian (born July 1, 
1866; died September 8, 1952); Mabel (born May 
28, 1871, died 1955); and Esther (died 1875). Eliza Otis died November 12, 1904, at Los 
Angeles, California. Harrison G. Otis Sr. died July 30, 1917, at the age of 80, at Hollywood, 
Los Angeles, California. 14 

Biographical Sketch 

Harrison Gray Otis received a “log-schoolhouse” education up to the age of fourteen, 
when he became a printer’s apprentice. 15 He worked at this trade in various places. Soon 
after the start of the Civil War (aka “War of the Rebellion’’), young Otis enrolled in the 
Union Army as a private with the Twelfth Ohio Volunteers. In 1864, he transferred to the 
Twenty-third Ohio Veteran Volunteers. Twice wounded in battle, he became a brevetted 
major and lieutenant-colonel. 16 

In 1867, Otis moved to Washington, D.C., where he became a government official 
and then a correspondent, editor, and foreman (1869-70) at the Government Printing 
Office. In 1876, he again moved his family, this time to California, where he assumed 
control of the Santa Barbara Daily Press , 17 From 1879 to 1882 he was special agent-in¬ 
charge in the Seal Islands. 

In 1882, Harrison Gray Otis took a position as editor of the Los Angeles Daily Times 
and Weekly Mirror, which he eventually purchased and renamed, as the Times-Mirror 
Company. He assumed the roles of president, general manager, editor, and publisher, 18 
and became one of the most influential men of California. 

Otis bequeathed his Wilshire Boulevard home to the City of Los Angeles for use in 
the advancement of the arts. Until 1997, the site housed the Otis Art Institute (of Parsons 
School of Design 19 ), now re-located to West Los Angeles and known as the Otis College 
of Art and Design. 20 


J'? //s ? 1 -'*■/ c V-. t f - y 



Harrison Gray Otis. (Courtesy of Bancroft 
Library, UC Berkeley. Otis, Harrison 
Gray: 1, Portrait Coll.) 


508 





Biographies O ♦ Otis 


Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Harrison Otis deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration on April 25, 1892, before Notary 
Public Frederick Harkness at Los Angeles, California. Following is an excerpt: 

I am resident of this, the city of Los Angeles, California; am president of the Times-Mirror 
Company, and editor and manager of the Los Angeles Daily Times. I was special agent of 
the Treasury Department, in charge of the fur-seal islands of Alaska during the years 1879, 

1880, and 1881, and had three assistant special agents stationed at the islands, acting under 
my directions. During these years I was present at the islands throughout each sealing 
season, having my headquarters on the island of St. Paul, and visiting the smaller island of 
St. George each season, and with my assistants personally superintended the catch of seals 
and the count and shipment of skins in each instance ... during my term of service at the 
island I made careful and elaborate reports each year to the Secretary of the Treasury. 21 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Harrison Otis arrived at the Pribilof Islands on May 27, 1879, to serve as the Special 
Agent-in-Charge. He arrived aboard the Alaska Commercial Company (ACC) steamship 
St. Paul, with assistant agents B. F. Scribner and John W. Beaman, husband of Elizabeth 
“Libby” Beaman. 2 - * 1 Otis was the agent whom Libby Beaman refused to identify in her 
diary, published years later by granddaughter Betty John under the title Libby. One of 
Libby’s first diary entries regarding the agent-in-charge says so, but doesn’t say why: 

“Well, Beaman,” he [Otis] said gruffly, "you did bring your wife after all. I should like to 
meet her.” 

I could scarcely believe John when he introduced me to his immediate superior officer, the 
Treasury Department senior agent, the man to whom John will be junior agent on the Seal 
Islands, the man with whom we have to share our lives for the next two years. Though John 
introduced him by name, I never shall name him. He will remain the Senior Agent, SA, no 
matter what happens. 23 

Within a day of Otis’ arrival at St. Paul Island he seized the schooner Loleta 24 for 
carrying illicit goods including “a large quantity of arms, ammunition, and distilled spir¬ 
its.” 2 ’ Otis sent the schooner to Unalaska with an officer to await the arrival of the cutter 
Richard Rush 26 The threat of marauders must have plagued him, for his reports included 
numerous references of vigilance on the matter. 

It will be necessary ... in order to effectively watch Otter Island, to have the special agents 
furnished with a suitable boat and at least two men to man it. These might be supplied by 
the cutter, and can be returned to it when she touches at the island for the last time in the 
fall. I recommend this course, and ask that the necessary instructions be given. 27 

Otis’ annual report dated July 30, 1880, stated that the ACC had installed telephone 
service between St. Paul village and the largest rookery at Northeast Point, where the 
islanders thought marauders would most likely launch an assault, but that no marauders 
had appeared around St. Paul Island during the reporting period. 28 However, while the 
islanders observed no pirates, at least one, Captain Adolphe F. Carlson of the schooner 
Alexander, stealthily claimed 300 sealskins from Otter Island. 29 On July 4, 1881, Agent 
Otis submitted a detailed report on “the movements and operations of suspected and 
marauding vessels.” 30 The motivation behind what would become an increasing surge of 
sealing piracy was the increasing value of landed seal pelts from $3 to $10 each. ’ 1 


509 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


The omnipresent fear of marauder predations upon the Seal Islands apparently con¬ 
tinued to weigh heavily on the mind of the agent-in-charge despite the apparent low in¬ 
cidence of such events. In 1882, during an off-island holiday celebrated at Santa Barbara, 
California, Otis wrote: 

Sir: I have the honor to present for your consideration and action the following matters 
pertaining to the seal islands of Alaska, etc.: 

I. Otter Island.—This island, lying about 6 miles off the southwest end of St. Paul Island, 
and not embraced within the terms of the Alaska Commercial Company’s lease [a point 
presented many times in the past] is the resort, annually, from June to November, of some 
thousands of (non-breeding) fur seals, which haul up from the sea to rest and play upon its 
rocky shores. They appear to be simply the overplus [surplus] from the larger island, and 
are mainly males, both young and old. It is believed that from 5,000 to 10,000 marketable 
skins might be taken there annually, if there were any authority for doing so, and the 
tendency is for the seals to steadily increase in numbers there. 32 

It was formerly the practice of certain subordinates of the Alaska Commercial Company to 
go to Otter Island in boats and drive the seals found there into the sea, the object being to 
discourage their coming to that island and force them to concentrate upon St. Paul Island, 
where the greater part of the fur-seal skins are taken. 

The device, even if it were legitimate, of driving the seals from Otter Island for the 
pretended purpose of taking away the attraction for marauders to make descents upon the 
island, is a futile one, because the seals persistently return after a few hours and can not be 
kept away except by a degree of harassment which is warranted by neither law nor good 
policy. 

I submit the whole subject to you, asking specific directions for the future, which shall be 
binding alike upon Treasury agents, the lessees, and all concerned. 

II. Protection of the seal islands.—In this connection I have the honor to renew my 
recommendation that Congress be asked for an appropriation to build a suitable vessel to 
be used for the protection of Otter Island and the seal fisheries against lawless intruders. 

At present the revenue steamer, which cruises in Alaskan waters, is able to make no more 
than two or three brief calls at the islands during the entire season, covering a period of not 
less than five months, during which the sensitive seal rookeries are practically at the mercy 
of marauding vessels, so far as any means of repelling them on water are concerned, for 
the Government officers at the islands have no such means at [their] command, not even a 
whaleboat. 

I think the policy of furnishing a small and inexpensive, though swift and effective, steam 
vessel for this purpose would be in the interest of true economy, for it would secure the 
complete protection of these priceless resorts of the fur seal, and at the same time relieve 
the revenue steamers entirely from the necessity of cruising in the immediate waters. 33 

Agent Otis’ military background might be seen to come through in his efforts to deal 
with the marauders. He also had to deal with island administrative matters. For example: 

I am asked by the native chiefs of St. Paul Island to present to the Secretary of the Treasury 
the case of one Kassian Shaisnekoff, a temporary resident of the island, who has never 
been admitted to the privilege of participating in the work of sealing for the reason that, 
though a native of the island he was living away from it (at Unalaska) when the country 
came into the possession of the United States. He subsequently returned to the island as 
a temporary laborer, and at his own request (and being a brother to the local priests) was 
permitted to remain on sufferance, but was ruled out as a sealer by my predecessor, Mr. 

Morton, in common with other natives who had been permitted to come to the island 
simply as temporary laborers under authority of the Department. Shaisnekoff has been 
given miscellaneous employment by the Alaska Commercial Company, and at the close of 


510 




Biographies O ♦ Otis - Notes 


each sealing season has generally been presented with the sum of $100 by the people, out 
of their sealing fund. I would recommend that the request made in his behalf be granted, 
were it not for the fact that it would constitute a precedent for the return of several natives 
of St. George Island who have never lived there since the transfer of the country, and whose 
advent at this late period, in the capacity of sealers, would doubtless be construed as an 
injustice to the people who have the prescriptive right to take seals, and who would be sure 
to strenuously object to the newcomers. I think this claim in behalf of Shaisnekoff would 
not have been urged were it not for his relationship to the local priests. I, however, report 
the case to you as it is, and await your decision thereon. 34 


Oustigoff, Simeon 

Guard, St. George Island 
Pribilof Islands Experience 

Simeon Oustigoff was one of the many Aleuts on St. George Island sent to guard the seal 
rookeries against marauders. 

Simeon Oustigoff and Innokenty Rezanzoff, who were sent to Zapadnie Rookery June 21, 
as guards, returned today—the service of each being 8 days, which, at the $1.50 per day, 
amounts to $12.00, with which they have, respectively, been duly credited. They brought in 
pelts of two seals killed for food, which weighed 7 pounds each, and were accepted by the 
agent of the N.A.C. Company. 35 


1 Colin Campbell Sanborn, "Wilfred Hudson Osgood: 1875-1947,” Journal of Mammalogy 29, no. 2 
(1948): 95 and 105. 

2 “Dr. W. H. Osgood, 71, Zoologist, is Dead,” New York Times, June 22, 1947, 52. 

3 Sanborn, “Wilfred Hudson Osgood,” 105-12; also see Donald J. Orth, Dictionary of Alaska Place 
Names, Geological Survey Paper 567 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1967), 25. 

4 Wilfred H. Osgood, Edward A. Preble, and George H. Parker, “The Fur Seals and Other Life of the 
Pribilof Islands, Alaska, in 1914,” Bulletin of the Bureau of Fisheries, vol. 34 (1915): 14. 

5 Ibid., 13-5. For additional perspective see Sanborn, "Wilfred Hudson Osgood,” 102; and Karl 
Patterson Schmidt, “Wilfred Hudson Osgood, 1875-1947,” The Auk 67, no. 2 (Apr. 1950): 183-9. 

6 Osgood, et al., “The Fur Seals and Other Life,” 15. 

7 Ibid., 147. 

8 David Starr Jordan, The Days of A Man (Yonkers-on-Hudson, NY: World Book, 1922), vol. 1, 611. 

9 Rossiter Johnson and John Howard Brown, eds., The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of 
Notable Americans: Brief Biographies of Authors, Administrators, Clergymen, Commanders, Editors, 
Engineers, Jurists, Merchants, Officials, Philanthropists, Scientists, Statesmen and Others Who Are 
Making American Elistory (Boston: The Biographical Society, 1904), vols. 1-10. 

10 Mark J. Denger, “Californians and the Military, Major-General Harrison Gray Otis, U.S.V.,” 
California Center for Military History, California Military Museum, http://www.militarymuseum. 
org; and Johnson and Brown, eds., Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary, vol. 4, 548. 

11 The " Weatherby” name was variously spelled; see “ Weatherby, Weatherbee, Wetherbee, Wetherby 
lines of NJ/NY/PA/DE/MA,” Ancestry World Tree at Ancestry.com (information provided by 
Eugene James Weatherby). 

12 William Henry Powell, Officers of the Army and Navy (Volunteer) Who Served in the Civil War 
(Philadelphia: L. R. Hamersly, 1893), 108. 

13 "Weatherby, Weatherbee, Wetherbee, Wetherby lines of NJ/NY/PA/DE/MA.” 

14 Denger, "Californians and the Military;” Johnson and Brown, eds., The Twentieth Century 
Biographical Dictionary, vol. 4, 548; and “Weatherby, Weatherbee, Wetherbee, Wetherby lines of 


511 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


NJ/NY/PA/DE/MA.” 

15 Denger, “Californians and the Military.” 

16 “History of Los Angeles County,” 151, http://www.heritagequestonline.com; and Johnson and 
Brown, eds., Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary, vol. 4, 548. 

17 “Harrison Gray Otis Album of California Scenes, ca 1890-1910,” http://www.oac.cdlib.org. 

18 Ibid.; and “History of Los Angeles County,” 151. 

19 “Harrison Gray Otis Album of California Scenes.” 

20 Denger, “Californians and the Military”; and Johnson and Brown, eds., Twentieth Century 
Biographical Dictionary, vol. 4, 548. 

21 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, convened at Paris 
under the Treaty between the United States of America and Great Britain, concluded at Washington 
February 29, 1892, for the determination of questions between the two governments concerning the 
jurisdictional rights of the United States in the waters of Bering Sea, vol. 3 (Washington, DC: GPO, 
1895), 85. 

22 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries and General Resources of 
Alaska (Washington, DC: GPO, 1898) vol. 1, 114. 

23 Betty John, Libby, The Sketches, Letters & Journal of Libby Beaman, Recorded in the Pribilof Islands, 
1879-1880 (Tulsa, OK: Council Oak Books, 1987), 12. 

24 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1, 115. 

25 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, May 28, 1880, 88. 

26 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1, 118. In his annual 
report (Annual Report for 1879 by Agent H. G. Otis, Aug. 25, 1879), Special Agent Otis gave the 
date of May 27, whereas he cited May 28 in his Preliminary Report for 1879, June 1, 1879, Seal and 
Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1, 115. 

27 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1, 126. 

28 Ibid., 130-1 and 135. 

29 Peter Murray, The Vagabond Fleet (Victoria, BC: Sono Nis, 1988), 23. 

30 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1, 144. The authors 
did not locate the actual report cited in the aforementioned document. 

31 Truman R. Strobridge and Dennis L. Noble, Alaska and the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, 1867-1915 
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999), 18. 

32 A seemingly contrary perspective was given by Special Agent Henry Glidden, who stated in his 1882 
annual report to Secretary of the Treasury, Charles J. Folger, “There have been but few seals on Otter 
Island during the season, and those are principally old, wounded, and played out, who require rest 
and hospital treatment,” U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries, 
vol. 1, 159. 

33 Ibid., 152-3. 

34 Ibid., 126-7. 

35 St. George Island Agent’s Log, June 28, 1893, 290. 


512 




p 


Parker, George Howard (1864-1955) 

Member, 1914 Commission to Study Fur-Seal Herds on Pribilof Islands 
Professor of Zoology, Harvard University 

Genealogy 

George Howard Parker was born at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on December 23, 1864, 
to George Washington Parker and Martha (Taylor) Parker. George Parker married Louise 
M. Stabler (1868-1954), a Barnard College graduate, in 1895. They had no children. 
George Parker died on March 26, 1955, at Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1 

Biographical Sketch 

George Parker graduated from Harvard University in 1891 with a Doctor of Science 
degree. He rose from the rank of teacher to that of full professor of zoology, a post he 
held until 1935. 

Professor Parker retired in 1935 but carried on his research work for another twelve years. 

In 1948 he published a major work on animal color changes. He was among the nation’s 
first experimental zoologists. His work developed understanding of the nervous systems 
and sense organs of animals.... He was an associate of the Marine Biological Laboratory at 
Woods Hole almost from its beginning and had spent his summers there in research. 2 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

George H. Parker’s reflections as a zoologist chronicled his experiences with the Pribilof 
Islands’ fur seals (Parker, The World Expands, 1946). He pointedly targeted the “politics” 
of what otherwise should have been a purely scientific undertaking. Controversy between 
politics and science surfaced an untold number of times during the government man¬ 
agement period. Parker arrived at St. Paul Island on June 21, 1914, and wrote about the 
experience years later: 


513 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


It is a fact often forgotten that the National Academy of Sciences, which came into being in 
1863 under President Lincoln, was established as a scientific advisory body to the United 
States government. In pursuance of this capacity I was nominated by the then president of 
the Academy, Dr. [William Henry] Welch, the year after I became a member [1914], to be 
one of three investigators to proceed to the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea to report to 
the federal authorities on the number and condition of the government fur seals on these 
islands. Thus my election to one of the most distinguished scientific bodies in the land 
brought me at once into a responsible position for counting seals. 3 

After the discovery of the breeding grounds of the Alaskan fur seals by the Russian 
navigators the herd from time to time suffered serious depletions from which, however, 
recovery was always made as a result of restrictive killing. A serious diminution in the size 
of the herd was reached under American management at the beginning of this century. 

On investigation it was declared that this diminution was due chiefly to pelagic sealing. 

This kind of sealing was carried on in the open sea in summer and far enough away from 
the Pribilof Islands to be legal. It resulted, however, in the killing of large numbers of cow 
seals, for these were the class of seal in the open sea at that season. The killing of a cow seal 
at that time of year was most destructive to the herd, for it meant not only her loss, but 
the loss of the unborn pup in her body and the death by starvation of her newly born pup 
temporarily left by her in the rookery on the beach. Those who practiced pelagic sealing 
were chiefly American, British, and Japanese sealers. After a conference of representatives 
of these three nations in Washington, D.C., it was agreed to make pelagic sealing illegal 
for the nationals of these countries and to give the herd a chance to recuperate if pelagic 
sealing was the cause of the reduction in numbers. The annual count of seals as made by 
the government agents on the two seal islands consequently came to be a matter of great 
moment. After this enumeration had been in force, it was claimed on the floor of Congress, 
by those who disbelieved that pelagic sealing was accountable for the diminution of the 
herd, that the reported numbers for the herd made by the island agents were falsified 
and that the favorable signs seen in the claimed increase of the herd on the cessation of 
pelagic sealing was fictitious. President Wilson was therefore authorized to send three 
investigators to the seal islands in 1914 to make an impartial count of the seals and to 
report back to Congress. The persons selected for this undertaking were Mr. W.O. Osgood, 
nominated by the Smithsonian Institution, Mr. E.A. Preble, nominated by the United States 
Department of Agriculture, and myself, nominated by the National Academy of Sciences. 
Shortly after the organization of the group, we met in Washington with Mr. [William] C. 
Redfield, secretary of the Department of Commerce, for a general conference. The outcome 
of this meeting was a request on the part of the secretary that he wished a report returned 
by us which we all could agree upon, and not a split report with each one expressing his 
own views. As our report was to turn mainly on an enumeration of seals it seemed to 
me that the secretary’s admonition savored rather of politics than of scientific integrity, 
for we all three entertained no doubts about our ability to count and to tell the truth. 

Before we started on our way to the Pribilofs we learned that we were to have companion 
investigators from the other nations concerned: from Great Britain Mr. James M. Macoun 
of the Geological Survey of Canada and Mr. B.W. Harmon of the Dominion Department 
of Marine and Fisheries, and from Japan, Dr. T. Kitahara of the Imperial Japanese Fisheries 
Bureau. Thus the party totaled six, and while the three from the United States were the 
official reporting members it may be said here in anticipation that not only these three but 
all six of the party signed the enumerations of seals reported, a conclusion which marks the 
difference between what a politician may anticipate as the outcome of an effort and what 
reputable scientists may contribute to it. 4 

Professor Parker continued his story about the Pribilofs: 

The island of St. Paul, like that of its brother island, St. George, is without a harbor. We and 
our belongings were landed at an open stone wharf and from there we walked the quarter 
of a mile or so into the native village. This consisted of about two or three wide lanes with 
rows of one story three room frame houses arranged in orderly sequence. The government 
house and the store toward which we went were double-decked frame constructions. 


514 




Biographies P ♦ Parker 


Not a soul was to be seen. We were somewhat surprised, but we at least found a man at 
the government house who told us that the whole village had gone to the carpenter shop, 
the largest building there, to see the first moving picture show which had ever come to 
the island. A few days before our arrival a United States naval vessel had put in to set in 
order the new radio station just then erected for the island. [The radio station was actually 
constructed in 1911.] This vessel carried a portable moving-picture outfit, and as a special 
and novel treat to the natives this outfit had been brought on the island and all in the village 
had been invited to come to the show. Hence the absence of life about the settlement. We 
dropped our bags at the government house and went in a body to the carpenter shop. The 
population of the village of St. Paul was then a little fewer than two hundred, and this whole 
congregation was crowded together into the carpenter shop to see the pictures. We were 
evidently in time to view most of the film, which consisted largely of views of New York 
with vessels in the harbor, skyscrapers, crowded street scenes, Central Park views, railroad 
trains on the elevated and on the surface, all of which seemed very familiar to us. At the 
end of the show the native chief [Elary Stepetin] was brought to us and introduced. He was 
an intelligent, well-dressed man of middle age who had been elected by the other natives 
on the island to his post and who spoke simple English. After having met us he returned 
to those in the shop, told them in the Aleut language who we were, and then asked us if we 
wished to speak to the villagers or ask anything of them. I was pushed forward and spoke a 
few words of greeting, which was translated by the chief into Aleut, and then I asked him 
what had been of most interest to the villagers in the movie which they had just looked at. 
There was much buzzing consultation, after which he said they were most interested to see 
that trees moved in the wind and that their branches were not stiff and rigid as they had 
heretofore thought. We then learned that there were no trees on the island, that, in fact, the 
nearest trees were at Dutch harbor some hundred miles away and that few or none of the 
natives had ever been off St. Paul. The only trees that they ever had seen were occasional 
trunks with a few stiff, leafless branches on them which had been washed from the Alaskan 
mainland to their island. Thus we began to learn the psychology of this isolated, Russian- 
Aleut, half-breed population. 

The school teacher on the island 5 , a very intelligent American, who, with his wife, did what 
they could for the welfare of the natives, complained of the circumstances under which 
he had to work. He told us that the United States government sent him a stock of primers 
to use in his school in which a picture of an object was given and below it its name in 
English. There would be a picture of a dog, with the name dog spelled out below, a horse, a 
cow, and so on. “But what am I to do with such a book,” asked he, “when not one of these 
things exists on the island? It is not surprising,” he said, “to hear the natives complain of 
the English language as a very impractical one, because in learning it they are expected to 
remember so many things which they have never seen.” I asked him what he regarded as 
the outcome of his three or four years of teaching, and he said sorrowfully that it amounted 
to bringing the pupil to the point of saying yes or no to very simple questions that might 
be asked of him. When I looked at the educational problem that this poor man had to face 
day in and day out I felt that my difficulties in trying to teach Harvard students, bad as the 
results commonly were, amounted to nothing compared with those of my distant colleague 
on the Pribilofs... . 6 

... we settled in the village of St. Paul at the government house and began to watch the 
coming of the bulls on Gorbatch Rookery, the nearest rookery to the village. In all there 
were about a dozen rookeries on St. Paul [Island] but we could know what was occurring 
on all of them by watching Gorbatch, the one nearest at hand. This occupied about half 
a mile of very stony beach and day by day more bulls took positions on it. Soon the cows 
began to appear, and shortly after that we saw the first pups born. Soon after the middle 
of July we assumed that all the breeding bulls had arrived and we began to count them. 

This was an easy undertaking for the bulls kept their places on the beach, were large, 
conspicuous creatures, and lifted themselves well above the other seals. It was like counting 
telegraph-poles as one walks along a telegraph line. All six of us walked together along the 
bluff above Gorbatch and counted, one by one, the breeding bulls, agreeing on a total of 
112. In about a week we had thus counted all the breeding bulls in the twelve rookeries on 


515 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


St. Paul and in the six on St. George and obtained a grand total of 1,559, an enumeration 
probably accurate to within one or two percent. A week or so later we essayed counting the 
pups. At this time in the summer, about the end of July, the cows can be easily driven into 
the sea, the bulls will remain at their old locations, and the pups are strong enough to be 
herded to one end of a given rookery. From this region they can then be allowed to return 
to the rookery in narrow files and can be counted as they pass a pair of enumerators for 
each file. This count cannot be so accurate as the count of bulls, but it must be very close. 
Gorbatch Rookery yielded 6,152 pups, and the count for both St. Paul and St. George gave 
a grand total of 93,250.... So the enumeration of the fur-seal herd, which might seem at 
first sight an insoluble problem, was at last accomplished and with a grand total of about 
294,000 individuals. This total figure confirmed the enumerations of the keepers on the 
islands for previous years and showed that, contrary to what had been said from the floor 
of Congress, the herd, now that pelagic sealing had almost entirely been eliminated, was 
increasing and that the increase was such as to warrant the expectation of a rapid recovery. 
This expectation has been fully realized, for the total herd of fur seals which numbered 
somewhat over a quarter of a million in 1914 is now, in 1943, estimated as some two and 
three-quarter millions. The enumeration of the Pribilof fur seals for 1914 having been 
completed, I left the islands on the revenue cutter Tahoma which picked me up at St. Paul 
on August 6 and started me on my return trip home by way of California/ 



Men including George Parker, Wilfred Osgood, and Ezra Thompson inspecting seals on a killing ground, 
St. Paul Island, circa 1914. (USUAFV6-45, Pribilof Islands Photographs, 1914, 1976-0063-00009, 
Archives, Alaska and Polar Regions Coll., Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.) 


516 




Biographies P ♦ Parker - Phelps 


Partch, Paul Childers 

U.S. Navy Radioman on St. Paul and St. George Islands, 1916-1919 
Genealogy 

Paul Childers Partch, son of missionary Virgil Partch, was born July 4, 1890, in Ningpo, 
China. Paul married Anna Povloff (1898-1942), daughter of Nicolas and Anna Povloff, 
at Kodiak, Alaska. The Partches had two sons: Virgil was born in 1916 on St. Paul Island 
and James was born on November 12, 1919 on St. George Island. Virgil died in 1984 in an 
automobile accident. 8 

Biographical Sketch 

Paul Partch’s father served as a Presbyterian missionary in China during the years 1888- 
93. The family remained in China until 1901, when they resettled at Oakland, California. 
Paul joined the Navy, which brought him to Wood [now Woody] Island, near Kodiak, 
Alaska, where he married Anna. Their son Virgil became known by his pen name “VIP.” 
He was one of this country’s “most prominent American gag cartoonists of the postwar 
era. After a brief period working for Disney studios, he began selling gag cartoons to large 
circulation magazines, including Collier’s and True. He also had a successful syndicated 
comic strip, Big George (1960-1979), and illustrated a number of children’s books.” 9 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Paul Partch served as a U.S. Navy radioman on St. Paul Island from 1916 to 1919, when he 
and his family moved to St. George Island, where they remained until 1920. 


Phelps, Edward John (1822-1900) 

U.S. Senior Counsel at International Fur-Seal Arbitration Tribunal, 1893 
American Lawyer and Diplomat 

Genealogy 

Edward Phelps was born on July 11, 1822, 10 at Middlebury, Vermont, to Samuel Shethar 
Phelps (born May 13, 1793, Litchfield, Connecticut) and Frances (Shurtleff) Phelps (born 
September 17, 1792, Litchfield). Edward married Mary S. Haight (born July 26, 1827, 
Monkton, Vermont) on August 13, 1845, in Burlington, Vermont. The couple had four 
children: Charles, Mary, Edward Haight, and Francis Shurtleff. 11 Edward Phelps died 
March 9, 1900, at New Haven, Connecticut. 12 

Biographical Sketch 

Edward John Phelps graduated from Middlebury College, Vermont, in 1840 at age eigh¬ 
teen, studied law at Yale University, was admitted to the bar in 1843, and contributed to 
the founding of the American Bar Association. 1 ' 


517 








Pribilof Islands: The People 


During President Fillmore’s administration, he 
was the second Comptroller of the Currency. 

From that time until 1885, though active in public 
life as an orator and a lawyer, he held no public 
office, but devoted himself to law.... In 1880 he 
was president of the American Bar Association. 

... In 1881 he became Kent Professor of Law at 
Yale. 14 

Phelps held this position at Yale until his 
death. 

Fur-Seal Arbitration 

Edward John Phelps served as senior counsel to 
the United States in 1893 in the Bering Sea con¬ 
troversy with Great Britain, 15 better known as the 
Fur-Seal Arbitration (1892-93). Under appoint¬ 
ment by President Benjamin Harrison, Phelps 
supported the U.S. representatives, Supreme 
Court Justice John M. Harlan, and Senator John 
T. Morgan. Phelps presented the eleven-day closing argument, 16 which included an ex¬ 
haustive review of the U.S. case for jurisdiction over the Bering Sea and a call for protec¬ 
tion of the seal herd from pelagic sealing. Phelps was not new to the international scene. 
President Grover Cleveland had appointed him as U.S. minister to Great Britain’s Court 
of St. James 17 from 1885 to 1889. Before the hearings in Paris, Phelps wrote an essay titled 
“The Behring Sea Controversy,” which appeared in the April 1891 issue of Harper’s New 
Monthly Magazine and later in a collection of Phelps’ orations and essays. 18 The following 
are excerpts from the essay that served as his summary argument: 

The question involved in what is called the Behring Sea controversy may be stated in few 
words. The Alaskan fur-seal fishery is the most important in the world. It was a material 
element in the value of that province when purchased by the United States from Russia, at 
a heavy cost, and one of the principal inducements upon which the purchase was made. 19 
Since Alaska became the property of the United States, this fishery has afforded a very 
considerable revenue to the government by the lease of its privilege, has engaged a large 
amount of American capital, and the industry of many American people.... 

The Secretary of State in his last (published) communication to the British government on 
this subject makes the following statement: “From 1870 to 1890, the seal fisheries carefully 
guarded and preserved, yielded 100,000 skins each year. The Canadian intrusions began in 
1886 and so great has been the damage resulting from their destruction of seal life in the 
open sea surrounding the Pribyloff [sic] Islands, that in 1890 the government of the United 
States limited the Alaska Company to 60,000 skins, but the company was able to secure 
only 21,000 seals.” 20 

The Secretary of State, in his correspondence with the British government... has 
undertaken to maintain that these waters are not... a part of the high or open sea ... 21 

There are three methods by which the Behring Sea question can be settled, and by one or 
other of which it must soon be disposed of: first, by putting a stop without further debate 
to the depredations of individual foreigners upon the breeding seals; second, by conceding 
to these foreigners the right to destroy the fishery, and withdrawing further remonstrance; 
third, by continuing the discussion with Great Britain of the abstract questions supposed to 



Edward John Phelps. (J. G. McCullough, 
ed., Orations and Essays of Edward John 
Phelps, Diplomat and Statesman.,) 


518 





Biographies P ♦ Phelps 



- V r , ( 2. Sir Richnrd Webstar. 3. Christopher Robinson. 4. Mr. Pipott. 5. Mr. CouJert. 0. Mr. Blodgett 
IiVhn T Vu-'!'-, T‘f’t‘", G _ ,lun ; U - 'f’d.Hflinen. 10. Alphonse <lo Couroel. 11. Mr. Jfiirlan. 12. E. Viconti Von 

T\»n mt 


nos ta. 


" . **-!?• to enter !«>(ween SumVrs 10 and 11 the yotinir 'looking man is Sir Charles if. /upper. 

" un 1 «W-« ' I'Rnl ore John W. Foster (tlie man with sideburns), next E. J. Phelps, next to right .1. 1C. Carter. 


mw 


THE BF.IUNCl SKA Tlljni N'AI. 
l'hoto^t»|.h taken before the F*,n*t£u Olti.-e In Pari.. I.'JJ 


The Bering Sea Tribunal in Paris. 1. Sir Charles Russell. 2. Sir Richard Webster. 3. Christopher 
Robinson. 4. Mr. Pigott. 5. Mr. Coudret. 6. Mr. Blodgett. 7. Sir J. S. Thompson. 8. Gregers Gram. 9. Lord 
Hannen. 10. Alphonse de Coureel. 11. Mr. Harlan. 12. E. Viconti Venosta. 13. John T. Morgan. 14. 
Joseph Pope. In center between 10 and 11, the young-looking man is Sir Charles H. Tupper. The three 
men on Tapper’s right are John W. Foster (the man with sideburns), next Edward J. Phelps, and to his 
right, J. E. Carter. Between Foster and Phelps is James Macoun. (F. W. Howay, British Columbia From 
the Earliest Times to the Present, vol. 2, chap. 27, “The Sealing Industry and the Fur-Seal Arbitration’,’ 
463.) 


be involved, until the extermination of the seal is completed and the subject of the dispute 
thereby exhausted, for which we shall not have long to wait. If the last course is taken, the 
credit of it will be due less to the administration charged with the conduct of our foreign 
relations than to the public sentiment which it represents and by which it must be guided. 22 

Despite scores of testimonies against pelagic sealing and the volumes presented 
before the Tribunal regarding seals, sealing, and the history of the Pribilof Islands, the 
U.S. arguments failed to sway the Tribunal. For example, and not surprisingly, the United 
States lost its contest for exclusive control, i.e. mare clausum (closed sea) of the Bering 
Sea. More disappointingly, pelagic sealers retained their right to hunt the seal within the 
Bering Sea, although they were restricted from sealing closer than sixty nautical miles of 
the Pribilof Islands. Regardless, enforcement efforts were marginal, the northern fur-seal 
herd continued to decline, and some sealers continued to raid the islands. 


519 

























Pribilof Islands: The People 


Philemonof, Anthony (1952-2009) 

President, Tanadgusix Corporation 
Biographical Sketch 

Anthony Philemonof was born July 14, 1952, on St. Paul Island to Terenty and Alexandra 
PhilemonofF. He graduated from Mt. Edgecombe High School in 1971 and furthered 
his education at Alaska Methodist University (now Alaska Pacific University). In 1977, 
Anthony met Rebecca Melovidov. In the summer of 2008, with their five children, they 
celebrated their thirtieth wedding anniversary. 

Anthony was a true born leader, like his father before him. He was a defender and advocate 
for the legal and economic rights of the Aleut people. After a brief stint at college, Anthony 
joined the Native Land claims movement. While working first for the Alaska Federation of 
Natives (AFN) and then later with the Aleut League, he traveled to all the Aleut Villages to 
help them to be legally recorded as official Alaska Native Village Corporations. Anthony 
then moved back home to St. Paul Island to help incorporate his own village. There he 
served as a Board of Director for Tanadgusix (TDX) Corporation for 33 years, and went 
on to serve as its President for 24 continuous years until his death in 2009. During that 
time Anthony helped start the commercial fisheries enterprise on the island as one of 
the first captains of a commercial halibut boat out of St. Paul. He and other leaders of St. 

Paul fought and lobbied for equal access to the abundant fishing resources around Bering 
Sea communities. His actions helped lead to securing rights to fish quotas for Bering Sea 
Villages, now known as the CDQ [Community Development Quota] program. Anthony 
continued his drive to help his people by also serving on the Council for the St. Paul Tribe 
and the City Council, and he worked for the Pribilof Islands School District. Of all of 
his efforts, Anthony was most proud of his leadership at the Village Corporation, TDX. 

He never varied from being the defender of his home land and his fight for economic 
and legal independence for his people. Along with his board and his management team 
he helped take TDX from a little Village Corporation doing just $70,000 in revenue to a 
diversified business doing over $70,000,000 in revenue; with hotels in Anchorage, Seattle 
and Portland, an office building in Hawaii, power plants in Dead Horse, Sand Point and the 
biggest wind-diesel power plant in Alaska on St Paul Island. One project that was dear to 
Anthony was TDX’s private dock in the St. Paul harbor. The dock led to the construction of 
the biggest crab processing plant built and operated in the Bering Sea. Everyone that got to 
know Anthony grew to love him for his intelligence, sense of humor, and dedication to his 
family and the people of St. Paul Island. 23 


Philemonof, Terenty Sr. (1921-1969) 

Community Store Owner, St. Paul Island 
Genealogy 

Terenty Philemonof was born November 10, 1921 on St. Paul Island, Alaska. Terenty was 
the son of Leonty (b. May 6, 1894, St. George Island; d. June 1969, St. Paul Island) and 
Xenia PhilemonofF (b. February 6, 1899, St. Paul Island). 24 Terenty had one sister, Serafina, 
born August 5, 1920, on St. Paul Island, Alaska. 


520 






Biographies P ♦ Philemonof - Pribylov 


Biographical Sketch 

Terenty Philemonof Sr. opened the St. Paul Island Aleut Community Store in 1948. The 
store continues as the only food store on the island, but it is now under the management 
of the AC Value Center. 


Pribylov, Gavriil (Gabriel) Loginovich (d. 1796) 

Russian Navy Navigator, Russian Discoverer of St. George Island, 1786 
Genealogy 

Gavriil Loginovich Pribylov was the son of Loginovich Prybilov, a Cossack from Okhotsk. 25 
Some claim that Gavriil Pribylov died in Sitka, 26 and others believe he died at Okhotsk. 27 
“Our veteran skipper Pribylov died in March, 1796. Prior to his death he took a vessel 
with a transport of settlers and hunters to Yakutat (Bering) Bay, but got only as far as 
Chugach Bay and turned back.” 28 Prybilov was buried on Kodiak Island, Alaska. 29 

The name Gavriil Loginovich Pribylov is variously spelled in the literature: Pribiiloff 
(Martin Sauer 30 and Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff 31 ); Gehrman Pribylov (Henry 
Wood Elliott 32 ); Gavrila [Gabriel] Pribylov (Katerina G. Solovjova and Aleksandra A. 
Vovnyanko 33 ); Gavriil Pribylov (Lydia Black 34 ); Gerasim Gavrilovich Pribilof (Scheffer 
et al. 35 ). His given name, as noted, received a variety of spellings. Gerasim (sometimes 
Gerassim) commonly appears in popular writings. The name Gerasim assigned to 
Pribylov may have its earliest origin with Vasilii N. Berkh. 36 In 1979, Richard A. Pierce 
and Alton S. Donnelly emphatically stated that Pribylov’s given name is “ not Gerasim 
Loginovich” but rather “Gavrilo Loginovich,” 37 a name applied by Kiril Khlebnikov. 38 In 
1990, Pierce contradicted his 1979 interpretation by referring to Pribylov as “Gavriil” in 
Russian America: A Biographical Dictionary , 39 Pribylov was also referred to as Gavriil by 
Basil Dmytryshyn, E. A. P. Crownhart-Vaughan, and Thomas Vaughan, 40 and by the late 
Russian-American historian, Dr. Lydia T. Black. Gavriil is the name accepted herein. 41 

Although the current spelling for the islands, “Pribilof,” was used in this book, 
Gavriil’s surname remains “Pribylov,” unless the name is given within quotations from 
outside sources. 

Biographical Sketch 

One of the first mentions of Gavriil Pribylov is in connection with the Russian fur- 
merchant company of Lebedev-Lastochkin, owned by Grigorii Shelikhov and Pavel 
S. Lebedev-Lastochkin. The two owners intended to monopolize the fur trapping and 
trading business in eastern Siberia and Russian America, and initiate fur-trade relations 
with Japan. In 1780, a tsunami that followed an earthquake “washed Lebedev’s vessel, Sv. 
Natal’ia, onto Urup Island in the Kurile Islands where existed large numbers of sea otters. 
The following year, F. N. Klichka, the Irkutsk governor, gave Lebedev the government- 
owned Sv. Georgii Pobedonosets [St. George the Victorious] so he could retrieve the vessel 
Sv. Natal’ia ” 42 The man instructed to return the damaged vessel was Gavriil Loginovich 


521 








Pribilof Islands: The People 


Pribylov, described as a former Russian navy master and navigator who had joined the 
company at the direction of his navy superiors. While in command of the SV. Georgii, 
Pribylov chose to sail to the Aleutian Islands and gather valuable furs before retrieving 
the Sv. Natal’ia. (He never did recover the damaged Sv. Natalia ..)* 3 

After his discovery of the Seal Islands, discussed below, Pribylov served as pilot- 
navigator on the vessel Slava Rossii during the Billings-Sarychev Expedition in 1790. 
He has been credited with mapping Mednyi (Copper) Island. 44 In 1794, Pribylov began 
working for the Northeastern Company and commanded the Sv. Ekaterina to Kodiak 
Island, Yakutat Bay, and Sitka Sound. Later in 1794, he commanded the Three Saints “to 
Yakutat (Bering) Bay, and in 1795 ... he attempted to deliver, at the orders of Alexander 
Baranov manager of the Russian-American Company, the first party of Russian settlers at 
Yakutat,” 45 but he apparently died before completing the endeavor. 46 

Russian Discovery of the Seal Islands 

The Seal Islands of the Bering Sea, also romantically referred to as the “Mist Islands,” 
were a safe haven for numerous marine mammal and bird species long before mankind’s 
relatively recent intervention, approximately 220 years ago. One wondrous example is 
the recent revelation that St. Paul Island was the last refuge of the North American mam¬ 
moth. 47 The woolly mammoth species’ extended period of survival likely resulted from 
the absence of man during the pre-European contact period. 48 The shrinking island land- 
mass, once part of the larger “Beringia,” and consequent reduction in forage was thought 
to have determined the species fate. 

Neither Gavriil Pribylov nor the men serving under him apparently left any first¬ 
hand written accounts of their discovery. However, sometime following his return from 
the Seal Islands, but not sooner than late 1789, Commander Pribylov conversed with 
Admiral Gavrilo Sarychev and Martin Sauer, interpreter for Captain Joseph Billings on 
the “Northeastern Secret Geographical and Astronomical Expedition.” 49 Both men re¬ 
counted Pribylov’s story. Sauer’s and Sarychev’s writings appear to represent the earliest 
known accounts of Pribylov’s Seal Islands discovery. In 1802, Sauer wrote: 

At the time he [Pribylov] took charge of the vessel as commander, on the part of the trading 
company; for which he received a share in the profits of the voyage. He made Oonalashka 
[Unalaska], and from his former observations that numbers of sea animals, particularly 
young kotic [fur seals], came from the north in the autumn, at the commencement of 
severe weather, he had formed a conjecture, that some unknown island lay at no great 
distance in that direction; and therefore resolved, without losing time, to take on board as 
many islanders as he could obtain with their small canoes and arms, and be convinced of 
the certainty or uncertainty of his supposition. 

Twenty-four hours after his departure from the island of Oonalashka, he discovered 
land. The southern and western parts are surrounded by rocks; but the north is easy to 
approach, and affords good anchorage in a commodious bay for small vessels, not drawing 
above eight or nine feet of water. The whole island is volcanic, destitute of inhabitants, and 
only produces the bulbs, plants, and berries, which are to be met with on all the Aleutan 
[Aleutian] islands. They found the low lands and the surrounding rocks covered with sea 
animals, particularly the ursine seal (kotic), and sea-lion (sivutsha); and with the skins of 
these animals they nearly loaded their vessel. Pribuloff called this St. George’s Island; and 
observing another island to the north, at the distance of 44 miles, he went thither in a large 


522 





Biographies P ♦ Pribylov 


baidar, accompanied by a number of Aleutes. This island is much smaller than that of St. 

George, and he named it St. Paul’s: this, as well as the former, was the retreat of immense 
herds of seals. On the island of St. George they passed the winter, and found the island 
parts overrun with foxes, which afforded them a profitable chase. It also abounded with the 
tusks of the walross, whch they picked up on the shores. 50 

In 1840, Russian Orthodox Bishop Ivan Veniaminov published another account of 
the Russian’s discovery of the Seal Islands. Sauer’s account, although purportedly taken 
from Pribylov himself, differs markedly in many respects from later accounts. However, 
Veniaminov’s account appears to be given the most widespread credence among histo¬ 
rians. 51 

The first Russian fox hunters to visit the Fox Island Chain ... began, because of the annual 
migration of seals in the spring toward the north and in the fall [toward] the south with 
their young, to suspect the existence of the Pribylovs. The very tradition of the Aleuts 
probably supported their conviction that islands existed to the north. However that may 
be, up until 1781 no one undertook the search, through lack of ships and other means, 
or more likely because at that time sea otters were still plentiful around Unalashka and it 
was needless to seek a new source of wealth. When the number of Russian hunters began 
to increase and the number of sea otters and other animals to diminish rapidly, some of 
the more adventurous hunters determined to try their luck, began to seek the Severnye 
[northern] islands where the fur seals were breeding. No one succeeded in this until 1786. 

Navigator Gavrilo Pribylov, who had spent a long time in America, was convinced by the 
very same signs that islands existed in the Bering Sea, and the straitened circumstances in 
which his company [Lebedev-Lastochkin] found itself forced him to make the effort to find 
them. Despite the pre-eminence of Pribylov in skillful seamanship over all the mariners of 
the time in that region, it did not fall to him to quickly discover them. While near one of 
the islands that later were to bear his name, he kept observing unmistakable signs of land. 

Yet, for a period of three weeks, he was unable to see land because of fog. 

Finally, fortune, as if taking pity on him, or perhaps yielding before the efforts of a 
persistent man, lifted the curtain of fog and the eastern part of the island nearest the 
Aleutian Archipelago showed itself, to their indescribable joy, before the eyes of our 
mariners. This island was named by them after their vessel ostrov Georgiia [“George 
Island”]. The foreman, Efim Ivanov Popov, with all the fur hunters on board, remained on 
the newly discovered island, 52 but the vessel, for want of a harbor there, departed to winter 
at the Andreianov Islands, carrying with it a number of fur seal and sea otter skins that they 
had time to take. 

The fur hunters who remained on George Island, in the forenoon of June 29 of the 
following year [1787] (the day of the Apostles Peter and Paul), saw to the north an island to 
which they forthwith gave the name Peter and Paul Island. (At present, however, the name 
Peter is scarcely ever used.) 

These islands, from the time of their discovery, have gone under a multitude of names; first 
of all, they were known as the “New Islands,” then Pribylov and the leader of the hunters 
called them the Lebedevskie [Lebedev] Islands. Mr. Shelikhov named them the Zubovskie 
[ostrova] [Zubov Islands]. 53 The fur hunters they called them both northern [Severnye] 
because of their position to the north of Unalashka and the Kotovye ostrove [Fur-Seal 
Islands] because of the pre-eminence of fur seal hunting there. At the present time [1840] 
they are known in the colonies simply as the Ostrovki [Islets] but the designation Pribylova, 
as the most appropriate, is universally used. 54 

Physician and natural historian Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff, who visited the is¬ 
lands in 1805 while on a Russian-American Company voyage around the globe, offered 


523 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


no details of navigator “Pribiiloff’s” discovery of the islands except that Pribylov had 
sailed out of Unalaska. 55 

Mentions of Pribylov’s discovery are also found in private correspondence. Fur trader 
Grigorii Ivanovich Shelikov, a one-time employer of Pribylov, wrote in 1789 to his chief 
manager in America, Evstratii Ivanovich Delarov: 

Pribylov has found two small islands about 200 versts from Unalashka, from which one can 
see more islands. Twenty Russians and 20 Aleuts remained to hunt on these islands and 
the rest went back on the ship to better harbors. In 2 years 40 men got more than 2,000 
sea otters, 40,000 fur seals, 6,000 blue foxes, and 1,000 puds of walrus ivory. Five thousand 
puds of whalebone was left on the islands because there was not enough room on the ship 
to load it. 

Pribylov brought two vessels for hunting, the first, under Lukaniev; the second, under 
Potap. They will start in the year 1791. The chief of the expedition, Osip Osipovich 
[Billings], assured me that he will help you. Besides Pribylov’s Islands they saw millions 
of sea otters, fur seals and sea lions on other islands to the north and on the coasts of 
America. I regret that you did not dispatch a ship north, as I instructed. 56 

Pribylov is credited as the first Russian sailor to recognize the islands but not neces¬ 
sarily the first non-Unangan explorer to visit them. In Zapiski Ob Ostrovah Unalakinskago 
Otdeyla, author Ivan Veniaminov made note of an earlier visitor: 

Traces were found of some earlier visitor, not long before Pribylov’s time, there having 
been described on the southwest shore of St. Paul Island, the copper hilt of a sword, a clay 
pipe, and a spot where a fire had been kindled. Had that visit occurred at a remote date, the 
sword hilt would have corroded away and the traces of the fire place been obliterated by 
weeds. 57 

If the above account is correct, then who was or were those earlier discoverers? 
Russians, Spaniards, English? And did their vessel sink or did they just hold onto the 
secret so that others would not find the home of the seals? 58 Pribylov’s discovery of the is¬ 
lands is part of traditional Aleut and Russian folklore, which Veniaminov described. “But 
if the Aleut tradition is to be believed,” Veniaminov wrote, “handed down to the present 
in their tales, they had known of the Pribylofs long before the arrival of the Russians. They 
called and continue to call, them Amix 59 [sic] ascribing their discovery to Igadagax, the son 
of an Aleut toion.” 60 The story of Igadagax is presented in his biography in this volume. 


Proctor, Alexander Henry (1868-1949) 

Agent, Department of Commerce and Labor, St. George Island, 1912-1919 
Agent, St. Paul Island, 1919-1924 

Genealogy 

Alexander Proctor was born in Washington, D.C., on January 29, 1868, and died there 
April 11, 1949. He married Lois Lippit. 61 


524 





Biographies P ♦ Pribylov - Proctor 


Biographical Sketch 

When not conducting his work in the Pribilofs, 

Alexander Proctor ran a chicken farm in Sonoma 
County, California. 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Alexander and Lois Proctor arrived at St. George 
Island in 1912 and remained until 1916. In 1919, 
the Proctors took up residence on St. Paul Island. 

Commander W. H. O’Brien Jr. of the USS 
Saturn, Alaska Radio Expedition 1916, wrote to 
his commandant at Mare Island, California, in 
appreciation of Mr. Proctor: 

1. Upon the arrival of the Expedition at St. George Island, the Agent, Mr. H. Proctor, came 
aboard and offered the services of his bidarrah (a native skin boat) and all of his laborers 
which number twenty-five. It is practically impossible to land freight in anything but a 
bidarrah. 

2. After the freight was landed and work commenced on the station, Mr. Proctor was 
very considerate and helpful in loaning tools of all sorts, lumber for staging, and even to 
messing the workmen for two meals a day. Mr. Proctor has done everything in his power to 
co-operate and facilitate the work, and the good record made is greatly due to his efforts. 62 



Alexander Henry Proctor. (NARA, 
Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, RG 
22 Administrative Correspondence, ca. 
1888-1987.) 



Left to right: Mrs. Lois Proctor, Alexander Henry Proctor, Mrs. Harry Peterson, 
Henry Day Aller, Dr. William McCoy Murphy, MD, Harry A. Peterson, U.S. Navy 
Radio Operator, and Charles E. Crompton. (Alaska State Library, Richard G. and 
Mary S. Culbertson Photograph Coll., PCA 390.077.) 


525 



































Pribilof Islands: The People 


As did other agents, Proctor dealt with a variety of situations on the islands. One was 
an alleged affair between a young Native woman and a navy radioman, who was thought 
to be the father of the woman’s baby. 63 The radioman vehemently denied the allegations, 
which were never verified. However, the incident strained relations between Proctor and 
the radioman, who left St. Paul on the navy vessel USS Saturn about the time of the child’s 
birth. The radioman was replaced by Harry A. Peterson, an electrician first class with the 
USN Radio Service. Peterson and his wife took up quarters in the radio cottage. 64 


1 U.S. Census, 1900; and Allen Johnson, ed., Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 5, 
1951-1955 (NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1977). 

2 “George H. Parker Zoologist, was 90,” New York Times, Mar. 28, 1955, 27. 

3 George Howard Parker, The World Expands (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1946), 147. 

4 Ibid., 149-50. 

5 Parker was referring to the Alvin G. Whitneys, who departed in July 1914. See Whitney biography 
herein. 

6 Parker, The World Expands, 154-5. 

7 Ibid., 155-6. 

8 “Obituary,” Los Angeles Times (Aug. 12, 1984), Metro Section, p. Bl. 

9 “Virgil Franklin Partch,” Wikipedia Encyclopedia, http://www.absoluteastronomy.com (accessed 
May 25, 2009); http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/partch.htm (accessed May 25, 2009); and “Obituary,” 
Los Angeles Times (Aug. 12, 1984), Metro Section, p. Bl. 

10 J. G., McCullough, ed., Orations and Essays of Edward John Phelps, Diplomat and Statesman (NY: 
Harper and Bros., 1901), ix. Note: Ancestry.com cites Apr. 6, 1882, as Phelps’ birth date, whereas 
“Phelps Family History in America and Kindred Family Histories,” http://family.phelpsinc.com (ac¬ 
cessed Dec. 20, 2006) gives July 9, 1882, as the date. 

11 Ancestry.com. 

12 McCullough, Orations and Essays, xii; and “The Late E. J. Phelps,” Harper’s Weekly, Mar. 24, 1900. 

13 McCullough, Orations and Essays, ix. 

14 “The Late E. J. Phelps,” Harper’s Weekly, and McCullough, Orations and Essays, xii. 

15 Webster’s Biographical Dictionary: A Dictionary of Names of Noteworthy Persons with 
Pronunciations and Concise Biographies, 1st ed. (Springfield, MA: G. and C. Merriam, 1943), 1175. 

16 McCullough, Orations and Essays, x. 

17 Ibid., xi and xiv. 

18 McCullough, Orations and Essays. 

19 In the view of these authors, Phelps’ argument that the Seal Islands were “one of the principal 
inducements upon which the purchase was made” was not supported in the records we examined, 
although the Seal Islands were alluded to in Senator Charles Sumner’s speech (see Sumner’s biogra¬ 
phy). Our opinion does not mean, however, that the topic of the economic value of the Seal Islands 
wasn’t raised during official or unofficial conversations, and we have seen writings indicating that 
California and Washington Territory businesses or “business interests” did consider the Seal Islands 
reason enough (e.g., see Hayward Hutchinson’s biography). 

20 McCullough, Orations and Essays, 429-31. 

21 Ibid., 434. 

22 Ibid., 451. 

23 Anthony Philemonof obituary provided by permission of his brother, Ron Philemonof, Jan. 2009. 

24 Betty A. Lindsay and John A. Lindsay, Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Genealogy and Census, NOAA Tech. 
Memo. NOS ORR 18 (2009), 57 and 565. 

25 Basil Dmytryshyn and E. A. P. Crownhart-Vaughan, eds., The End of Russian America: Captain P. N. 
Golovin’s Last Report, 1862 (Portland: Oregon Historical Soc., 1979), vol. 2, 134. The presumption is 
that the senior Login [Loginovich] Prybilov was a lifelong resident of Okhotsk. 

26 For example, Henry W. Elliott, A Report Upon the Conditions of Affairs in the Territory of Alaska 


526 





Biographies P ♦ Proctor - Notes 


(Washington, DC: GPO, 1875), 63. 

27 Richard A. Pierce, Russian America: A Biographical Dictionary (Kingston, ON: Limestone Press, 
1990), 413. 

28 Ray Hudson, ed., People of the Aleutian Islands, Alaska Historical Commission Studies in History, 
no. 196 (Unalaska, AK: Unalaska City School District, 1986). Pierce, Russian America, 413, identified 
Yakutat Bay as synonymous with Bering Bay; also, Pierce apparently did not realize that Pribylov did 
not complete his trip to Yakutat Bay, as he stated on page 413. 

29 Katerina G. Solovjova and Aleksandra A. Vovnyanko, The Fur Rush (Anchorage: Phenix, 2002), 131 
n. 215; and Lydia T. Black, Russians in Alaska: 1732-1867 (Fairbanks: Univ. of Alaska Press, 2004), 
149. 

30 Martin Sauer, An Account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition to the Northern Parts of 
Russia: For Ascertaining the Degrees of Latitude and Longitude of the Mouth of The River Kovima, 
of the Whole Coast of the Tshutski, to East Cape, and of the Islands in the Eastern Ocean, Stretching 
to the American Coast, Performed... by Commodore Joseph Billings, In the Years 1785, & c. to 1794 
(London: T. Cadel, 1802), 210. Sauer sailed with Pribylov during the Billings Expedition (Hubert 
Howe Bancroft, The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, vol. 33, History of Alaska, 1730-1885 [San 
Francisco: A. L. Bancroft, 1886], 191-3) thereby giving him opportunity to hear a first hand-account 
of the Seal Islands. 

31 Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff, Remarks and Observations on a Voyage around the World from 
1803-1807, vol. 2, ed. Richard A. Pierce, trans. Victoria Joan Moessner (Kingston, ON, and 
Fairbanks, AK: Limestone Press., 1993), 6 n3. 

32 Henry Wood Elliott, Seal-Islands of Alaska, 1880, 8. 

33 Solovjova and Vovnyanko, The Fur Rush, 356. 

34 Black, Russians in Alaska: 1732-1867, 148. 

35 Victor B. Scheffer, Clifford H. Fiscus, and Ethel I. Todd, History of Scientific Study and Management 
of the Alaskan Fur Seal, Callorhinus ursinus, 1786-1964, NOAA Tech Rep NMFS SSRF-780, 1984, 

1. 

36 Vasilii N. Berkh, A Chronological History of the Discovery of the Aleutian Islands or the Exploits 
of Russian Merchants: With a Supplement of Historical Data on the Fur Trade, ed. Richard A. 

Pierce, trans. Dmitri Krenov (Kingston, ON: Limestone Press, 1974). Originally published as 
Khronologicheskaia istoriia otkrytiia Aleutskikh ostrovov, Hi podvigi Rossiiskogo kupechestva. (St. 
Petersburg: N. Grech, 1823). 

37 P. A. Tikhmenev, A History of the Russian American Company, ed. Richard A. Pierce and Alton S. 
Donnelly, trans. Dmitri Krenov (Kingston, ON: Limestone Press, 1979), vol. 2, 253. 

38 Kiril Timofeevich Khlebnikov, Notes on Russian America, Parts II-V: Kad’iak, Unalashka, Atkha, 

The Pribylovs, ed. Richard Pierce, trans. Marina Ramsay (Kingston, ON and Fairbanks, AI<: 
Limestone Press, 1994), 182. 

39 Richard A. Pierce, Russian America: A Biographical Dictionary, 412. 

40 Basil Dmytryshyn, E. A. P. Crownhart-Vaughan, and Thomas Vaughan, eds., Russian Penetration of 
the North Pacific Ocean, 1700-1799, vol. 2 (Portland: Oregon Historical Society Press, 1988), 473. 

41 Black, Russians in America, 104. 

42 Solovjova and Vovnyanko, The Fur Rush, 8-9. 

43 Ibid., 9. 

44 Pierce, Russian America, 413. 

45 Solovjova and Vovnyanko, The Fur Rush, 248 and 313; and Pierce, Russian America, 413. 

46 Bancroft, History of Alaska, 356. 

47 K. J. Crossen, D. R. Yesner, D. W. Veltre, and R. W. Graham, “5,700 Year-old Mammoth Remains 
from the Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Last Outpost of North American Megafauna,” Geological Society 
of America, 2005 Salt Lake City Annual Meeting, Abstracts with Programs, 37: 463; and R. D. 
Guthrie, “Radiocarbon Evidence of Mid-Holocene Mammoths Stranded on an Alaskan Bering Sea 
Island,” Nature 429 (2004): 746-9. 

48 See Tim Flannery, The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and its Peoples 
in Atlantic Monthly, 2001, for an interesting examination of effects of mankind’s hunting strategies 
upon the existence of numerous large North American land mammals including the mammoth. 

49 Pierce, Russian America, 352. 

50 Martin Sauer, An Account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition, 211. 


527 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


51 Bancroft, History of Alaska, vol. 33, 191-3, melds the accounts given by Sauer and Veniaminov. 

52 Dmytryshyn and Crownhart-Vaughan, eds., The End of Russian America, vol. 2, 373-4, cited a letter 
written by Grigorii I. Shelikhov to Evstrat I. Delarov in which he stated, “When Pribylov was about 
halfway to Aglits, he discovered two small islands not more than 200 versts [one verst = 0.6629 mile 
or 1.067 kilometers] from Unalaska. From those two islands, still others are visible. On the two he 
discovered he left 20 Russians and 20 Aleuts to hunt, and the rest went back by ship to good har¬ 
bors. In two years the 40 men took more than 2,000 sea otters, 40,000 fur seals, 6,000 blue fox, 1,000 
puds [one pud = 36.11 pounds avoirdupois] of walrus tusks, and 500 puds of whiskers.... Pribylov’s 
two hunting vessels will set out in 1791 with Popov in charge of one and Lukiniev [Lukannon] of the 
other.” 

53 Black, Russians in America, 116 nl6 and 131. The name “Zubov Islands” was meant to honor Count 
Platon Zubov in 1794—he was a favorite of Empress Catherine. But Russian-American Company 
Chief Manager Murav’iev chose to honor Pribylov’s discovery of the islands, and he had the support 
of the Russian Navy. According to Richard Pierce, Russian America, 368, Matvei Ivanovich Murav’ev 
served as chief manager from 1820 to 1825. 

54 Ivan Veniaminov, Notes on the Islands of the Unalashka District [Zapiski ob ostrovakh 
Unalashkinskago otdeyla ], ed. Richard A. Pierce, trans. Lydia T. Black and R. H. Geoghegan 
(Kingston, ON: Limestone Press, 1984), 135-6. 

55 Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff, Remarks and Observations on a Voyage around the World, vol. 2, 6; 
cf. 11 n3 for spelling of Pribuloff. 

56 P. A. Tikhmenev, A History of The Russian American Company, trans. and ed. Richard A. Pierce and 
Alton S. Donnelly (Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 1978), 19-20. 

57 Ivan Veniaminov, Zapiski Ob Ostrovah Unalaskinskago Otdeyla, Early History of the Pribylov 
Islands, trans. R. H. Geoghegan (unpublished, undated), located in reprint file collection, NOAA 
Mammal Library, Seattle; and Bancroft, The History of Alaska, vol. 33, 193 n38. 

58 Bancroft, History of Alaska, vol. 33, 193 n38, stated that “Berg, who has traced the course of nearly 
every other vessel in these waters, states that nothing was known of Pribylof’s beyond the return of 
his rich cargo.” This statement is taken to mean that no record was found of any vessel being at the 
Seal Islands prior to Pribylov’s discovery. 

59 Richard Henry Geoghegan and Fredericka I. Martin, 77ze Aleut Language: The Elements of Aleut 
Grammar with a Dictionary in Two Parts Containing Basic Vocabularies of Aleut and English 
(Washington, DC: Department of the Interior, 1944), 102. Geoghegan also offers the word “ammiq,” 
which he interpreted as “mother’s brother.” "Mother’s brother” is the translation of some present- 
day Aleuts for “amiq,” also known as the Pribilof Islands or only St. Paul Island, depending upon the 
context. Bancroft, A History of Alaska, 191-2, applied the name “Amik.” 

60 Ivan Veniaminov, Notes on the Islands of the Unalashka District, 134. 

61 California Death Index, 1940-1997; and U.S. Census, 1900. 

62 St. George Island, Alaska, Official Journal 1916, copy of communique inserted following entries for 
June 20, 1916. NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, RG 22. 

63 St. George Island, Official Journal, Apr. 26, 27, and 30; May 30; and June 9 and 16, 1916. 

64 Ibid., June 20, 1916. 


528 




Redpath, James C. (1844-1920) 

Agent, Alaska Commercial Company, 1875-1890 

Agent, North American Commercial Company, 1890-1905 

Superintendent, North American Commercial Company, 1906-1910 

Genealogy 

James C. Redpath was born to English emigres in Connecticut in 1844 and died in San 
Francisco on August 13, 1920. He never married. When not in Alaska, Redpath lived in 
San Francisco as a fur-trader managing a fur store. 1 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

James Redpath deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration on June 3, 1892, before Treasury 
Agent-in-Charge William H. Williams at St. Paul Island, Alaska. Excerpts follow: 

1 am an American citizen, a native of Connecticut, and I am forty-eight years of age. At 
present I am a resident of St. Paul Island, Alaska. I have resided on the Seal Islands of St. 

George and St. Paul since my first coming to Alaska in 1875. My present occupation is that 
of local agent on St. Paul Island for the present lessees, the North American Commercial 
Company. I have a practical knowledge of and am thoroughly conversant with the habits 
and conditions of the fur seal as it exists on the Pribilof Islands of St. George and St. 

Paul.... I have had a personal experience of seventeen seasons on the killing grounds in 
different situations, from that of seal clubber to foreman, several years of which I have been 
the resident local agent. 

Before the Alaska Commercial Company leased the seal islands in 1870, it was a common 
practice to drive seals from North East Point to the Village on St. Paul Island, a distance 
of 12 miles and from Zapadnie to the Village on St. George Island, a distance of 6 miles, 
across a very rough and rugged country. 

When the Alaska Commercial Company took control of the islands the drive from North 
East point was prohibited, and a salt house and other necessary buildings erected within 

2 miles of the killing ground, and all the skins taken there were salted, stored, and shipped 


529 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


from North East Point. In 1879 a killing ground was made, and a salt house built at Halfway 
Point, within 2 miles of the hauling grounds, and all skins taken at the Point are salted 
there. At Zapadnie, the same year, a killing ground was made within a mile of the hauling 
ground, and the skins taken there are taken to the Village salt house in boats, or, when the 
weather is unfavorable, by team and wagon. 

Since 1878 there has not been a drive made on St. George, a salt house was built about 
1875, and the 6 mile drive prohibited, and a trail made at great expense across the Island, 
over which the skins are taken on pack saddles to the Village. Since 1874 no seals have been 
driven on St. George Island to exceed 2 Vi miles. 2 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

During the course of writing an article titled “Polar Bear and Mammoth,” Smithsonian pa¬ 
leontologist Clayton Edward Ray interviewed former government agent G Dallas Hanna, 
who had known James Redpath: 

At the time of the Jordan Investigation of the Fur Seals of the Pribilof Islands, these islands 
were under lease to the North American Commercial Company. The local manager was 
Mr. Redpath. After the termination of the lease, he settled at Dutch Harbor, Alaska. I met 
him there once, but I do recall having discussed the various practical jokes which were 
attributed to him by his own company associates, [Alexander Henry] Proctor and [Watson 
Colt] Allis. Mr. Redpath was a very pleasant conversationalist. One of these pranks was 
the sowing of Lukanin black sand beach with brass spelter just after the last ship had 
sailed south one fall. The news of having discovered gold on the black sands of Alaska 
the previous summer led to casual observation at the mess table that some of the sands 
on St. Paul were black. Might they also carry gold? Lukanin beach, being very handy, was 
investigated and much to the surprise of every one, the first test revealed specks of yellow 
metal. The resulting “gold” rush was on and lasted until cold weather closed the operation. 

Before spring, someone figured out how to test for gold and the fun was over. 



Group of men including Watson Colt Allis and James C. Redpath (second and fourth from the left, re¬ 
spectively), 1920s. (Alaska State Library, Richard & Mary Culbertson Photograph Coll., P390-32.) 


530 

















Biographies R ♦ Redpath - Resanzoff 


The mammoth teeth found in the cave in Bogoslof Hill were apparently planted under Mr. 
Redpath’s direction. They had probably been obtained from people returning from Seward 
Peninsula, where they were obtained in numbers during gold-rush days. South-bound 
vessels from Nome often put in to Village Cove on St. Paul, so the opportunity was there. 
Apparently Mr. Redpath was entertaining members of the Jordan Expedition and turned 
the conversation to fossil mammoths and suggested that the cave in Bogoslof Hill would be 
an excellent place to search. Members of the expedition then went to the cave and rather 
quickly found what they were looking for. 

I believe one of the natives who first told me the story of Bogoslof Cave was Neon Tetof, in 
whom I grew to place much confidence. It was repeated by others, including the two (then 
boys) who did the actual planting. I recall they chose a dark, rainy day for the three or four 
mile trip, so as not to be seen by any of the investigators of the expedition. 3 

Local lore on the Pribilofs tells of Redpath’s support of at least one and maybe more 
children born out of wedlock, to whom he left large sums of money upon his death in San 
Francisco. 4 


Resanzoff (Rezanzoff), Andronic (d. 1887) 

Genealogy 

Andronic Resanzoff is listed in the July 20,1881, St. George Island Census along with wife 
Theodocia (aka Fedosia) and six children: daughters Theodocia, Stepeneda (Seraphina) 
and Agrophema (adopted); and sons Lazar, Innokenty, and Loverenty. 5 Andronic 
Resanzoff died October 15, 1887. 6 The 1883 St. George Island Census listed Serefema 
Rezanoff as the granddaughter of Fedosia Rezanzoff/ 

Biographical Sketch 

Andronic Resanzoff was listed as a St. George Island chief in the July 1, 1883, St. George 
Island Census and as a ship passenger in the St. Paul Island Agent’s Log on May 29, 1885. 


Resanzoff (Rezanzoff), Innokenty (b. 1877) 

Genealogy 

Innokenty Resanzoff was born March 7, 1877, to Andronic and Theodocia (aka Fedosia) 
Resanzoff. 8 Innokenty Resanzoff was listed as a bachelor in the St. George Census of 1895. 9 

Biographical Sketch 

Innokenty Resanzoff was one of many Aleuts at St. George Island who guarded the seal 
rookeries against marauders. 

Simenon Oustigoff and Innokenty RezanzofF, who were sent to Zapadnie Rookery June 
21, as guards, returned today the service of each being 8 days, which, at the $1.50 per day, 
amounts to $12.00, with which they have, respectively, been duly credited. They brought in 
pelts of two seals killed for food, which weighted 7 pounds each, and were accepted by the 
agent of the N.A.C. Company. 10 


531 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


Resanzoff (Rezanzoff), Peter (1844-1899) 

Genealogy 

Peter Resanzoff was born on St. George Island, Alaska, on March 6, 1844. 11 Peter married 
Matrona (surname unknown) born in 1838, Sitka, Alaska. Peter and Matrona had a son, 
Paul, born July 9, 1877, and a daughter, Tatiana, born February 22, 1883, on St. George 
Island. 12 Peter Rezanoff died there on January 27, 1899. 13 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

The following description of Peter Resanzoff is taken from testimony given by George 
Wardman before the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries in 1888. Wardman, 
a former Treasury agent, was asked if he had knowledge “of the condition of the natives 
on the [St. George] island compared with what it was before the Territory was ceded to 
the United States.” 

Yes, sir; we had there a very intelligent half-breed native. He spoke very good English, and 
he could read and write English very well. His name was Peter Resanzoff. He had been 
educated at Sitka under the Russian rule, when he was a boy. I think his father was going to 
put him in the church, but he never went in. He seemed to be a pretty bright fellow and he 
was better educated than any of the children who had been to school on the island. He used 
to read Dickens’s [sic] stories. He can make a pair of pump-soled boots; he is a first-class 
carpenter, and can make a gun-tube out of a rat-tail file; he is a pretty good blacksmith, 
and could cut your hair as well as a barber, and he was a pretty clever fellow. He said that 
those fellows did like to work, but under the Russian rule they had to pack every skin from 
the village over to Garden Cove, which is 3 miles across the island. They had a landing on 
the south side of the island and they used to make the natives pack all the skins over there. 

They lived in barabakies at that time. A barabakie is a sort of dirt house. They lived at 
“Staroi Steel,” or old village, and the Russians made them pack skins from there clear across 
the island, 3 miles, to a vessel on the other side. The Americans have put in better facilities 
for shipping skins. Peter said the natives all lived in barabkies at that time, and now they 
live in frame houses. 14 

Peter Resanzoff’s name also appeared in testimony given by former Assistant Agent 
William Gavitt before the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries in 1888. Gavitt 
had alleged that Alaska Commercial Company (ACC) employees abused St. George Island 
Natives, and for his attempt to quell the abuse these same individuals verbally abused and 
threatened him and his wife. Peter Resanzoff along with other unnamed Natives signed a 
petition sustaining Gavitt’s allegations. Gavitt stated that an ACC employee threatened to 
“get even with Peter Rezanzoff,” and subsequently, he alleged, ACC personnel forced Mr. 
Resanzoff to a work detail when he was ill so that he could not testify on Gavitt’s behalf. 15 
William Gavitt’s allegations were ultimately dismissed by the committee, as discussed in 
more detail in his biography herein. 


532 






Biographies R ♦ Resenzoff - Roosevelt 



Matrona, Peter, and Tatiana Resanzoff. (Charles S. Hamlin Coll., 728-035, Archives, Alaska and Polar 
Regions Coll., Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.) 


Roosevelt, Theodore (1858-1919) 

President of the United States, 1901-1909 
Pribilof Islands Experience 

President Theodore Roosevelt had concerns that the rapid decline of the northern fur- 
seal population was fueled by Japanese pelagic sealers harassing the Pribilof Islands, as 
well as the fact that their escapades wreaked havoc with U.S. foreign affairs. (See the 
Walter Lembkey biographical sketch, which addresses the killing of several Japanese ma¬ 
rauders on St. Paul Island in 1906 .) Roosevelt addressed the issue in a magazine article 
wherein he considered exterminating the fur-seal herd: 

In case we are obliged to abandon the hope of making arrangements with other 
governments to put an end to the hideous cruelty now incident of pelagic sealing, it will be 
a question for your serious consideration how far we shall continue to protect and maintain 
the seal herd on land with result of continuing such a practice, and whether it is not better 
to end the practice by exterminating the herd ourselves in the most humane way possible . 16 

President Roosevelt did not have to give the order to exterminate the herd. 


533 












Pribilof Islands: The People 


Ryan, Thomas F. (b. 1841) 

Assistant Treasury Agent, St. George Island, 1885-1886 
Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Thomas Ryan deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration on March 26 , 1892 , before Notary 
Public Sevellon A. Brown at Washington, D.C. An excerpt: 

I am a resident of Indianapolis, Indiana, and am 51 years old. During the years 1885 and 
1886 I was Assistant Treasury Agent, residing on St. George Island, one of the Pribilof 
Islands. I arrived there about the 1st of May, 1885, and remained there until August 9, 1886. 


I am further satisfied after my two years’ experience that the driving of male seals to the 
killing grounds by the natives could be of no possible injury to seal life on the islands. 1. 11 


1 U.S. Census, 1910 (3A), 1920 (37), San Francisco, CA; California Death Index 1905-1939 (p. 8986), 
death file no. 13302, Aug. 13, 1920, http://www.vitalsearch-ca.com/gen/ca/_vitals/cadeath.htm. 

2 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, convened at Paris 
under the Treaty between the United States of America and Great Britain, concluded at Washington 
February 29, 1892, for the determination of questions between the two governments concerning the 
jurisdictional rights of the United States in the waters of Bering Sea, vol. 3 (Washington, DC: GPO, 
1895), 147 and 150. 

3 Clayton Edward Ray, “Polar Bear and Mammoth,” Arctic 2, no. 1 (Mar. 1971): 15-16. See John 
Hanson biography herein for additional information on mammoth discovery. 

4 Aquilina Lestenkof of St. Paul Island told the authors that Redpath was the father of one of her kin 
and that he provided financial support to the child’s family after he departed the island, and willed a 
sum to the same following his death. 

5 Betty A. Lindsay and John A. Lindsay, Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Genealogy and Census, NOAA Tech. 
Memo. NOS ORR 18 (2009), 142, 154, and 161. 

6 Ibid., 189. 

7 Ibid., 237. 

8 Ibid., 10 and 121. 

9 Ibid., 268. 

10 St. George Island Agent’s Log, June 28, 1893, 290. Innokenty Resanzoff would have been fifteen years 
old at this time. 

11 St. George Island Agent’s Log, 1877, 91, for birth date; and Lindsay and Lindsay, Genealogy and 
Census, 136. 

12 Lindsay and Lindsay, Genealogy and Census, 10 and 161. 

13 St. George Island Agent’s Log, 1899 Census, for date of death. 

14 U.S. Congress, House, “Report from the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries of the House 
of Representatives,” in The Fur-Seal and Other Fisheries of Alaska: Investigation of the Fur-Seal and 
Other Fisheries of Alaska. 50th Cong., 2nd sess., H. Rep. no. 3883 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1889), 35. 

15 Ibid., 187-8 and 192. 

16 Theodore Roosevelt, “The Fur-Seal Fisheries,” Metropolitan Magazine, Mar. 1907, 687-98. 

17 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 174-5. 


534 





s 


Scheffer, Victor Blanchard (b. 1906 ) 

Zoologist, Author, Photographer, Lecturer, and Conservationist 
Biologist, Pribilof Islands, 1940-1964 
Chairman, Marine Mammal Commission, 1973 

Genealogy 

Victor Blanchard Scheffer was born on 
November 27, 1906, in Manhattan, Kansas, to 
biologist Theophilus Scheffer (1867-1967) and 
Celia Esther (Blanchard) Scheffer. His father 
“worked for the old Bureau of Biological Survey, 
the first federal agency concerned with explor¬ 
ing the bird and mammal fauna in the United 
States.” 1 Victor Scheffer married Mary Elizabeth 
Maclnnes on October 12,1935. The Scheffers had 
three children: Brian M. Scheffer, a psychothera¬ 
pist; Susan (Scheffer) Irvine, a homemaker; and 
Anne (Scheffer) Carlstrom, a middle-school math 
teacher. 2 

Biographical Sketch 

Victor Scheffer’s early education took place in the 
Puyallup, Washington, schools. He earned degrees in zoology—BS (1930), MS (1932), 
and PhD (1936)—from the University of Washington. His first job in zoology was with 
the U.S. Bureau of Entomology, slicing daffodil bulbs in search of bulb-fly grubs, during 
the summer of 1928. He also worked as a nature guide at Mount Rainer National Park for 



Victor Bernard Scheffer, Colorado A&M 
College, March 1956. (NOAA, NMML 
Library, Seattle, WA.) 


535 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


five summers while attending the University of Washington, thus obtaining a first-hand 
ecological education. 5 

In 1937, the Department of Agriculture, U.S. Biological Survey, hired Scheffer as a 
junior biologist; he spent his summers in that position with the Olaus Murie Aleutian 
Islands Expedition. In 1940, just before the Biological Survey became the new U.S. Fish 
and Wildlife Service within the Department of the Interior, Scheffer was assigned to the 
Pribilof Islands, an experience that led him to become a “world authority on the biol¬ 
ogy and conservation of marine mammals.” 4 Scheffer retired from government service in 
1969 to devote more time to writing and lecturing. Among his numerous publications in 
the following years were six award-winning titles: The Year of the Whale (1969, winner of 
the John Burroughs Medal in 1970), The Year of the Seal (1970), The Little Calf (1970), The 
Seeing Eye (1971), A Voice for Wildlife (1974, recipient of the Joseph Wood Krutch Award 
in 1975), and A Natural History of Marine Mammals (1976). In 1973, Scheffer became the 
first chairman of the Marine Mammal Commission, created after passage of the federal 
Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. 5 In 2006, Victor B. Scheffer became a centenar¬ 
ian; his father also had lived into his 100th year. 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Victor Scheffer’s life-altering adventure into the world of the fur seal began when he left 
Seattle for the Pribilof Islands on June 10, 1940, aboard the Bureau of Fisheries vessel 
Penguin. During his first summer in the field, Scheffer’s job focused on conducting a 
census of the fur-seal population, which he later estimated at one and a half million. 
Lacking other professional assistance, Scheffer used a method of hot-iron branding on 
5,000 seal pups with intentions of developing a scientific approach for estimating the 
population in subsequent years; he later said that “the hot-iron branding of pups was 
an unintended cruelty because the little seal pups didn’t like it at all.” 6 Over the next few 
years Scheffer substituted the method of applying metal tags to the seals’ bodies, along 
with aerial photography and a continuation of the pole counting method (“lines of white 
or striped poles ... along the ground midway between tri-pod towers, marking the limits 
of the area counted from each tower”). 7 Scheffer’s 1948 aerial photos of the islands are 
among the earliest aerial photos taken of the Pribilof Islands. Earlier aerial photos were 
taken by military personnel during WWII. Aerial photography proved to be a dramatic 
improvement for counting seals over any other methods previously used by other scien¬ 
tists and non-scientists. 

Besides the seal population, Scheffer studied Arctic blue fox, reindeer, numerous 
birds, and plants of all varieties on the Pribilof Islands. In the summer of 1940, he esti¬ 
mated the reindeer herd on St. Paul Island at 2,000 animals. Little more than a decade 
later, in 1951, he wrote of the demise of the herds on the Seal Islands and pointed to the 
reasons. 8 During his fifteen summer trips to the Pribilof Islands over twenty-four years 
(1940-64), 9 Scheffer accumulated an extensive collection of photographs accompanied 
by a detailed, annotated catalog of those images. He wrote extensively on the subject of 
fur seals and on other subjects as well. From 1932 to 2001, he produced 284 scientific 
publications, including 29 books. 10 Using his large collection of scientific materials and 


536 






Victor B. Scheffer weighing northern fur-seal pups at St. Paul Island. (NOAA, NMML Library, Seattle, 
WA, VBS-4737.26.) 



Fur-seal biologists at Tolstoi Point, St. Paul Island, circa 1940. Left to right: Karl H. Kenyon, William 
Sholes, Robert Z. Brown, and Victor B. Scheffer. (Courtesy Ford Wilke’s daughter, Gretchen W. Fischer.) 


537 





Pribilof Islands: The People 



Victor S. Scheffer, 3rd from left, and Charles Ford Wilke, 4th from left, circa 1940. (Courtesy Ford 
Wilke’s daughter, Gretchen W. Fischer.) 


his influence as a world-recognized expert, he initiated what would become the present- 
day Marine Mammal Library at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 
Western Regional Office in Seattle, Washington, where many of his photographs are ar¬ 
chived, although they remain uncataloged and un-indexed at the time of this writing. 

Beginning in 1955, Scheffer’s findings “figured prominently during the negotiations 
. . . for a new fur-seal treaty. Those talks culminated in the ratification, in 1957, of the 
Convention on Conservation of North Pacific Fur Seals, agreed to by the four signatories 
to the 1911 treaty.” 11 


Scribner, Benjamin Franklin ( 1825 - 1900 ) 

Assistant Agent, St. George Island, 1879-1880 
Genealogy 

Benjamin Franklin Scribner was born September 20, 1825, in New Albany, Indiana, the 
son of Abner Scribner and Charlotte (Devol) Scribner. 12 Benjamin Scribner married 
Annie (unknown surname) in Indiana. The 1880 census showed that the family included 
four sons and two daughters: Edmund, Charles, Cornelia, Mary, George and William. 
The couple eventually had ten children. Benjamin died on November 29, 1900, in New 
Albany. 13 


538 








Biographies S ♦ Scheffer - Seward 


Biographical Sketch 

[Benjamin Franklin Scribner] early displayed a military 
bent, joining the Spencer Grays, a local militia group. When 
war broke out with Mexico in 1846, the group volunteered 
for action, and became Company A of the 2nd Indiana 
Volunteers. Scribner served for one year, seeing action 
at Buena Vista and earning a promotion to sergeant. In 
1847 he published an account of his experiences, largely 
excerpts from his journals, entitled Camp Life of a Volunteer 
(Evansville, J. R. Nunemacher, 1847). 



Scribner’s civilian occupation was as a chemist and druggist, 
and in the profession he ran the partnership of Scribner 
and Magazines, one of the largest [stores] of its kind in New 
Albany. 

In 1861, Scribner first joined a local militia, then as a colonel 
he [was] recruited [by] the 38th Indiana Volunteers. This 
regiment in the following two years served in Kentucky and 
Tennessee, and saw action at Stones River, Chickamauga, 
Lookout Mountain, and Kenesaw [sic] Mountain.... He was 
retired because of ill health in 1863, having been brevetted a 


Benjamin Franklin Scribner, 
1825-1900. (http://www. 
civilwarindiana.com/soldiers/ 
reg038.html, accessed Sep. 28, 
2004.) 


brigadier general. 


Scribner took advantage of his war service to obtain appointment in 1865 as collector 
of internal revenue for the second Indiana district. He held this post for six years, while 
retaining an interest in the drug business which was run by his partner. 14 

After Scribner returned to Indiana in 1880, he pursued his pharmacy interests and 
remained involved with veterans’ affairs. 


Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Benjamin Scribner offered the following deposition for the Tribunal of Arbitration on 
April 23, 1892, before Notary Public Sevellon A. Brown at Washington, D.C.: 

I am 66 years of age, and a pharmacist by profession. My residence is New Albany, Ind. In 
July, 1878,1 was appointed assistant Treasury agent for the seal islands, and arrived on said 
islands in May, 1879.1 landed at St. George Island and remained there continuously until 
August, 1880, except a part of the season of 1880; I spent on St. Paul Island. 15 


Seward, William Henry ( 1801 - 1872 ) 

Lawyer and Political Leader 
U.S. Secretary of State, 1861-1869 

Genealogy 

William Henry Seward was born on May 16, 1801, in Florida, New York, to Samuel 
Seward and Mary (Jennings) Seward. He married Frances Adeline Miller and the couple 
had five children: Augustus Henry, Frederick William, Cornelia, William Henry, and 
Frances Adeline. All of the children were born in New York State. 16 


539 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


Biographical Sketch 

William Seward practiced law in Auburn, New 
York, beginning in 1823. He served as governor 
of New York from 1839 to 1843 and was elected 
to the U.S. Senate, where he served from 1849 to 
1861 and was a strong advocate for anti-slavery 
legislation. He served as U.S. Secretary of State 
from 1861 to 1869, during which time he initi¬ 
ated and concluded negotiations with Russia to 
acquire Russian America, soon to be known as 
the Territory of Alaska. 17 The story of Seward’s 
involvement with the purchase of Alaska has 
been written about extensively. Interested read¬ 
ers are urged to examine sources such as Victor 
J. Farrar, The Annexation of Russian America to the United States; Ted C. Hinckley, The 
Americanization of Alaska, 1867-1897; Ronald Jensen, The Alaska Purchase and Russian- 
American Relations; David Hunter Miller, The Alaska Treaty, Morgan B. Sherwood, 
Alaska and Its History; and Archie W. Shiels, The Purchase of Alaska. 

We did not find any records specifically linking Secretary Seward to the Pribilof 
Islands or the northern fur seal. It remains unclear whether the Seal Islands was part of 
his rationale for purchase of Russian America, but clearly his actions led to significant 
changes for the inhabitants of the Seal Islands. 



William Seward. (NAA, Stanley Brown 
Coll., lot 54-204.) 


Shaiashnikov (Shaiashnikoff), Kass’ian (d. 1859 ) 

Manager, Russian-American Company, St. Paul Island (ca. 1828-1857) 

Genealogy 

Kass’ian Shaiashnikov 18 married Nadezhda (unknown surname) on July 8, 1827. The 
couple had six children: Innokenty (b. 1827); Pavel (b. 1835); Kseniia (b. 1838); Petr (b. 
1839, d. 1848); Zakharii (b. 1841); and Mariia (died 1848). Biographer Richard Pierce 
surmised that first wife Nadezhda died before Kass’ian’s marriage to Iustiniia Kochergin 
on August 4, 1850. 19 Kass’ian and Iustiniia had four children: Mariia (1850-52), Kassian 
(b. 1852), Evdokiia (b. 1854), and Petr (b. 1855). Kass’ian died at Unalaska on January 2, 
1859. Iustiniia died March 6, 1863. 20 

Pribilof Experience 

Deacon Kass’ian Shaiashnikoff served as the Russian-American Company manager of St. 
Paul Island from circa 1828 until he retired in 1857. 21 Aleut historian Henry W. Elliott 
wrote about Deacon Kass’ian’s diary, which unfortunately did not survive to tell what 
likely would have been an illuminating perspective of life on the Pribilof Islands during 
the mid-nineteenth century. 


540 







Biographies S ♦ Seward - Shepard 


He left a copious and a carefully written diary, covering everything that transpired daily on 
the seal islands [sic] during all that period. A stupid and unworthy relative actually took this 
precious MS. [manuscript] and had pasted it all over the doors, the walls, and the ceiling 
of his house on the island in 1860-1864, and I saw a few of the smoke-stained sheets still 
sticking there in 1872. 22 

Apparently, Kass’ian was highly regarded by his superiors. Among other accom¬ 
plishments, he was credited with providing a detailed natural history of the northern fur 
seal included in a book by Iurii Simashko, titled Description of All Water Animals of the 
Russian Empire (1851).Two of Kass’ian’s sons, Innokenty and Pavel (Paul), became the 
first Orthodox priests to serve St. Paul Island (see the chapter herein on the Orthodox 
clergy on the islands). 


Shepard, Captain Leonard Griffin ( 1846 - 1895 ) 

Chief U.S. Revenue Marine Service 

Captain, USS Rush 

Chief of Division, Revenue Marine 


Genealogy 

Leonard Griffin Shepard was born November 10, 
1846, at Dorchester, Massachusetts, to Horatio 
Gates Shepard and Mary A. (Griffin) Shepard. 
Leonard married Isabel Sharp on February 4,1880, 
in Steubenville, Ohio, and the couple had two chil¬ 
dren, Leonard Griffin and William Chambers. 24 
Captain Shepard died of pneumonia at age forty- 
nine on March 1, 1895, in Washington, D.C. 25 

Biographical Sketch 

Captain Leonard Shepard was the “first officer in 
permanent charge of the Revenue Marine,” 26 later 
known as the Revenue Cutter Service, where he 
dealt with issues of personnel and fleet improve¬ 
ments. 



Captain Leonard Griffin Shepard. (USCG 
Military Museum.) 


Isabel Shepard accompanied her husband on 
his 1889 cruise to the Bering Sea in protection of the fur seal. That year the Bancroft 
Company in San Francisco printed her book, The Cruise of the U.S. Steamer Rush in 
Behring Sea—Summer of1889, which recorded her experiences during the voyage. 27 


Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Captain Shepard offered his experience of patrolling the Bering Sea to the Tribunal of 
Arbitration on April 27, 1892, before Notary Public George Y. Coffin at Washington, 
D.C. His deposition may have influenced the tribunal to prohibit pelagic sealing within 


541 







Pribilof Islands: The People 



THE U. S. REVENUE STEAMER “RUSH,” WITH HER PRIZES OF 1887, AT SITKA 

U.S. Revenue Steamer Rush. (Isabel Shepard, The Cruise of the U.S. Steamer Rush in Behring Sea— 
Summer of 1889J 


sixty miles of the Seal Islands. Unfortunately, the sixty-mile radius proved insufficient as 
female seals traveled 150 miles or more from the islands to feed. Shepard recalled three 
cruises to the Bering Sea, in 1887, 1888, and 1889, 

for the purpose of enforcing existing law for protection of seal life in Alaska and the waters 
thereof, and also to protect other Government interests in Alaska. 

Pursuant to orders received from the Treasury Department, I sailed from San Francisco 
June 4, 1887, arriving at Unalaska on the 15th of that month. On the 18th I commenced 
cruising in Bering Sea. I hereby append to and make a part of this affidavit a table, marked 
A, giving the names of the vessels seized by me in Bering Sea while violating the law of the 
United States in relation to the taking of fur-bearing animals (all these vessels so seized 
were unmistakably engaged in sealing), together with the date of the seizure in each case, 
the nationality, rig, tonnage, hailing port, master, and managing owner of each vessel, 
the longitude and latitude in which each vessel was seized, the white men, Indians, and 
Chinamen on board at the time of seizure, the number of sealskins and the weapons on 
each vessel. In the cases of the Challenge, Anna Beck, W.P Sayward, Dolphin, Lilly L., 

Grace, and San Jose the vessels were towed to Unalaska, and their sealskins and arms were 
taken from them, and they were sent to Sitka. The Ellen, Albert Adams, Annie, Alpha, 
and the Kate and Anna were disarmed and the sealskins taken on board the Rush at the 
time and place of seizure, and they too were sent to Sitka. All these vessels reported there, 
except the Ellen and San Jose, going to San Francisco, and the Albert Adams, to Victoria, 

British Columbia. 


542 





















Biographies S ♦ Shepard 


Table A. 


1 

£ 

Date 

seized. 

National¬ 

ity. 

Big. 

Name and official 
number. 

Ton¬ 

nage. 

Hailing port. 

Master. 

Managing owner. 

Lati¬ 

tude 

(north). 

Longi¬ 

tude 

(west). 

1 

2 

8 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

1887 

June 30 

July 2 

July 9 
July 12 

July 16 

July 17 

Aug. 6 

Aug. 6 

Aug. 6 

Aug. 8 

Aug. 8 

Aug. 18 

American. 

British ... 

....do. 

-do. 

American. 

British ... 

American. 

British ... 

American. 

-do. 

-do. 

-do. 

Schooner 

Steam 

schooner. 

Schoonei 

Steam 

schooner. 

Schooner 

Steam 

schooner. 

Schoonei 

.. .do- 

...do .... 

.. .do- 

Steam 

schooner. 

Schooner 

Challenge, 126339 . 

Anna Beck, 64135 . 

W. P. Sayward, 83446.. 
Dolphin, 83445 . 

Lilly L, 140872. 

Grace, 83442. 

Ellen, 135838 . 

Alfred Adams, 83443.. 

Annie, 106406 . 

Alpha, 105761. 

Kate and Anna, 14373. 

San Job6, 116087 . 

36.61 

36. 35 

59.79 
60.10 

63. 42 

76.87 

12.03 

G8.75 

25.27 

26.58 

16.49 

51.88 

Seattle, Wash .. 

Victoria, B. C... 

-...do. 

-do. 

San Francisco.. 

Victoria, B. C... 

San Francisco .. 

Victoria, B. C... 

San Francisco.. 

Astoria, Oregon. 

Portland, Oregon 

San Francisco.. 

H.B. Jones. 

Louis Olsen-- 

George R. Ferry . 
J. D. Warren. 

James W. Todd.. 

William Petit.... 

Thos. H. Went¬ 
worth. 

W. H. Dyer. 

Henry Brown 

James Tatton.... 

Charles Lutjens.. 

John S. Lee. 

Albert Douglass. 

J. D. Warren, Victoria, 
B. C. 

C. D. Ladd, San Fran¬ 
cisco. 

J. D. Warren. Victoria, 
B. C. 

Claus W. Liljcquist. 

Jacob Gutmann, Victo¬ 
ria, B. C. 

James Laflin, San Fran¬ 
cisco. 

Jas. Tatton, Astoria, 
Oregon. 

Chas. Lutjens, Portland, 
Oregon. 

James Garvin, Oakland, 
Cal. 

S5XSSK88SCSSSJ; 
K3«£e5»feSoa§> oow Sg 

m Is- 
d. 

167° 26' 

167 51 

167 63 

170 38 

168 40 

1GG 56 

167 20 

167 19 

169 40 

169 51 

167 28 


S 

a 

s 


14 

7 

G 

7 

22 

6 


4 

11 


7 

16 


Indians. 

a 

- 

1 

H 

2 

o 

Seal skins. 

is 

,aS 

® (a 
2 e 
CQ 

d 

s 

S) 

u 

1 

-= 

o 

1 


151 

4 

5 

12 


336 



19 


477 



26 


618 

4 

3B 



197 

9 

G1 

24 

l 

769 

3 

22 



195 

3 

3 

21 

l 

1,379 

3 

9 



304 

2 

5 



389 

5 

6 

.... 

l 

577 

6 

8 



891 

7 

6 


I again sailed from San Francisco, the 3rd of July, 1888, and entered Bering Sea about the 
16th of the same month. Owing to the large number of vessels seized in 1887, very few 
entered Bering to take seals in 1888, and I made no seizures. I only saw two vessels in 
the sea during that season, one of which, the Juanita of Victoria, British Columbia, was 
engaged in taking seal at the time we sighted her, which was August 5, in latitude 54° 38" 
north, longitude 166° 54" west. 

In 1889 I again sailed from San Francisco for Bering Sea on June 1, and arrived at Unalaska 
June 16.1 began cruising in the sea eight days later. 1 hereby append to and make a part of 
this affidavit a table marked B, giving the names of the vessels seized by me in Bering Sea 
while violating the laws of the United States in relation to the taking of fur-bearing animals, 
together with the date of seizure, nationality, rig, tonnage, hailing port, master, managing 
owner, latitude and longitude in which seized, and the white men and Indians on board at 
the time of seizure, the number of sealskins and weapons on each vessel seized. In nearly 
every case of those vessels named in Table B, they had boats out engaged in sealing. All 
of them were ordered to go to Sitka, but none of them reported there, all going to their 
homeports. The Black Diamond, the Minnie, and the Pathfinder were each placed in 
charge of a special United States officer, who protested in vain against the noncompliance 
with the instructions given to proceed to Sitka. The Minnie in spite of the officer on board 
continued sailing in Bering Sea until August 17, and secured during that time 478 seal 
skins. 


Table B. 


i 

S 

Date of 
seizure. 

Nationality. 

Big. 

Name and official 
number. 

6 

m 

a 

0 

Staling port. 

Master. 

Owner. 

Lati¬ 

tude 

(north). 

Longi¬ 

tude 

(west). 

d 

2 

2 

3 

h 

J 

Seal skins. 

Is 

*7« 

11 

• 

u 

® 

•E 

! 

a 

*3 

£ 





o 

H 







I 

a; 

o 

0 

1 

1889. 
July 11 

July 15 
July 29 
July 30 



Black Diamond 

81.57 

Victoria, B. C. 

Owen Thomas .... 

Frank <fc Gutman.. 

56° 22' 

170° 25' 

5 

20 

76 

1 


20 




61304.* 

40. 06 


Victor Jackobson. 

Victor Jackobson . 

55 11 

165 55 

5 

16 

418 


2 

11 

3 

4 



Pathfinder, 75908 . 
James G. Swan, 




Bechtel. 

57 24 

171 55 

20 


853 

4 

8 


United States. 

—do .... 

59. 91 

Port Townsend ... 

Martin Benton ... 

Chestoqua Peterson 

55 44 

171 4 

2 

ii 

171 

2 

2 

11 

5 

July 31 

British. 


76803. 

Juanita, 72675. 

40. 21 

Victoria, B. C. 

C. E. Clarke. 

Hall & Gospel. 

65 42 
55 29 

170 40 
166 15 

4 

5 

14 

25 

619 

333 



14 

23 

6 

Aug. 6 

.. .do. 


Lily, 83443*. 

68.75 

-do. 






•[Partly owned by American citizen*. 


I hereby append to and make part of this affidavit [Table C] the number and names of 
vessels fitted out for sealing boarded and examined by me in Bering Sea or the waters of 
Alaska Territory during the sealing season of 1889, together with the date of master, owner, 
latitude and longitude, white men and Indians on board, sealskins and weapons found. 

The last three columns of said table are incomplete, from the fact that the officers boarding 
failed to get definite statements on these points. They were not seized, because evidence 
was wanting as to their having actually sealed in Bering Sea. During these three years I had 
frequent conversations with the masters and crews of sealing vessels in relation to open- 


543 






















































































Pribilof Islands: The People 


sea sealing. From these conversations, and also from my own observations, I make the 
following statement in relation to pelagic sealing.... 

It is my opinion that should pelagic sealing be prohibited in a zone 30, 40, or 50 miles about 
the Pribilof Islands it would be utterly useless as a protection to seal life, because female 
seals go much farther than that in search of food, and because fogs are so prevalent about 
those islands that it would be impossible to enforce any such prohibition. 28 


Table C. 


<5 

e 

p 

fc 

Date 

boarded. 

Nationality. 

Rig. 

Name. 

Tonnage. 

Hailing port. 

Master. 

Owner. 

Latitude 

(north). 

Longi¬ 

tude 

(west). 

a 

<D 

a 

© 

2 

s* 

Indians. 

Seal skins. 

S 

CP 

« 

Other arms. I 


18S9. 















i 





123. 43 





20 





2 





96. 37 





14 





3 





79.75 





18 





4 




Lily L. 

63.42 



C.D. Lodd. 


22 





3 




Triumph... 

98 




5flo .V 

1700 41' 

25 





6 





79.42 





18 





7 





35.45 





14 





£ 

July 23 








55° 44' 

167° 18' 

*2 

13 





6 

July 23 




24.49 




54° 42' 

167° 38' 

8 


57 



2 





96.37 






14 





11 

July 27 






Dodd. 


570 36' 

171° 34' 

20 


561 



1 





123.43 




56° 44' 

171° 33' 

20 


100 



13 





90 

St. John, N. B. 



56° 43' 

171° 44' 

19 

2 

51 



14 

July 30 




63 




56° 49' 

171° 21' 

23 


108 



C 





79.42 




57° 00' 

171° 23' 

18 





16 





38. 01 




Off Ak 


12 



6 

5 

17 

Aug. 13 




58 






5 

20 




18 

Sept. 5 




63 





23 


1,700 


















* Picked up from Bessie Kutter. 


Sims, Edwin W. ( 1870 - 1948 ) 

Solicitor (General Counsel), U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, 1905-1906. 
Genealogy 

Edwin W. Sims, born on June 4,1870 at Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, was the son of Walter 
and Elizabeth (Knowles) Sims. He was raised in Bay City, Michigan. On February 9, 1898, 
he married Charlotte Smith, daughter of Frank J. Smith. The couple had six children: 
Charlotte Elizabeth, Helen B., Frank S., Susan, Edwin W., and Priscilla S. Edwin Sims Sr. 
died June 16, 1948. He was interred at the Sims Private Cemetery, Sims Ranch, Au Gres, 
Michigan. 29 

Biographical Sketch 

Edwin Sims worked as a reporter, editor and special correspondent for several Michigan 
newspapers before graduating from the University of Michigan Law Department in 1894. 
As a member of the bar, he practiced law in Chicago and then served as Cook County, 
Illinois, District Attorney from 1900 to 1903. President Theodore Roosevelt appointed 
him Solicitor of the Department of Commerce and Labor in 1905; Sims left that position 
in 1906. After Sims’ investigation of the Seal Islands, President Roosevelt appointed him 
U.S. Attorney in Chicago, a position he maintained until 1911. Thereafter, he held various 
legal positions in Michigan. 30 


544 































































































































Biographies S ♦ Shepard - Sims 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

In July 1906, Edwin Sims, Solicitor for the 
Department of Commerce and Labor, traveled to 
the Pribilof Islands to undertake a special inves¬ 
tigation. Agent Walter Lembkey was in charge at 
the time. Coincidentally, Sims arrived a few days 
after a raid by Japanese sealers had resulted in 
the deaths of several and the capture of others. 
In recording the incident Sims praised Agent 
Lembkey and the island’s Aleut guard. The report 
attested to the stressful conditions facing inhabit¬ 
ants of the islands during the pelagic sealing era, 
as detailed within the following excerpts. 



About 9 o’clock on the morning of July 16 the 
native watchmen at Northeast Point, St. Paul 
Island, reported a schooner, about two miles out, 
sailing toward the shore. Upon the receipt of 
this information Chief Agent W.I. Lembkey and 
Assistant Agent James Judge, each accompanied 
by three or four natives, proceeded to a point on 
the shore from which the schooner could be seen. 
These agents and their parties then separated and 
concealed themselves at a point where landings 
were feasible close to two of the principal breeding 


HON. EDWIN W. SIMS 


Edwin W. Sims, Solicitor for the 
Department of Commerce and Labor. 
(Ernest A. Bell, War on the White Slave 
Traded 


areas, and about a half a mile from each other. The schooner, which was easily seen by these 
parties, continued to cruise parallel with the shore at a distance of about two miles out until 
10.30 a.m., when a small boat put off and approached within a half mile of shore. 


This movement was evidently for the purpose of locating the seal rookery, for upon 
discovering that there were no seals at the particular place the boat returned to the 
schooner and was taken about a mile farther on to a point opposite the breeding areas 
under Hutchinson Hill, where it again put off from the schooner and headed for the shore. 
The boat shortly afterwards made a landing about 200 yards east of the largest breeding 
area on the island—that located under Hutchinson Hill—and a crew of six Japanese 
disembarked, pulled up the boat, and proceeded to cross the beach to the grassy plateau 
beyond. 


A few yards from the water’s edge they were surprised by Chief Agent Lembkey and the 
native guard under his command and in compliance with his order threw up their hands 
without resistance. In reply to an inquiry, one of the landing party, who spoke some 
English, stated to Mr. Lembkey that they had come ashore for water. It was obvious, 
however, after investigating the contents of the boat, that this statement was untrue. The 
only receptacle capable of containing water carried by the boat was a 5-gallon cask, which 
was full of fresh water. On the other hand, it was manifest from the presence of sealing 
clubs, skinning knives, and other paraphernalia for taking seals on land that the purpose of 
their visit was to raid the rookery. The men were accordingly placed in charge of a native 
guard and later in the day were taken to the village 12 miles distant on the other end of 
the island. The party effecting this capture consisted of Chief Agent Lembkey and three or 
four natives. The only arms of the Government agent’s force were two rifles carried by the 
natives. 


The boat in which the raiders landed was taken charge of by the Government agents and 
is now in their keeping. It is of the Otter boat type; about 18 feet long, and, in addition 


545 








Pribilof Islands: The People 


to carrying six oars, was equipped with a mainsail and jib. The boat and its equipment is 
typical of the small boats usually carried by the schooners engaged in pelagic sealing. The 
oars were muffled and the rowlocks wound with rope which was greased with tallow, so 
that the boat might be propelled through the water without noise. The oars were fastened 
to the boat so that when suddenly dropped they would not float away, and in front of each 
seat on both sides of the boat and within easy reach of the oarsmen was a canvas knife 
shield. The boat was also provided with a gun rack. When captured, it contained six sealing 
clubs, two skinning knives, a compass, a cask full of fresh water, some ship’s biscuits, a 
short sealing club for killing seals in the water, and bamboo poles with iron hooks for 
hauling them aboard. 

The seal rookeries at Northeast Point, where the raid was attempted, are the largest and 
most extensive on the island. A conservative estimate, based upon an actual count of seals 
on certain portions, places the total number of seals on these particular rookeries at the 
time of the attempted raid at 30,000. Of these 15,000 were females. 

During the remainder of the day the schooner from which the boat put off continued to 
cruise around Northeast Point, sometimes close in shore and at other times farther out, but 
easily within the 3-mile limit many times. 

Upon my arrival at St. Paul Island, July 20,1 examined through an interpreter, the men 
captured as above described. They at that time stated that the name of the schooner from 
which they came was the Dai Ni Toyai Maru, i.e., Toyai Maru No. 2; that she carried a 
crew of 32 men, and had sailed from Hakodate, Japan, May 20, 1906. They stated that she 
was not a pelagic sealer, and denied that she was one of a regular Japanese sealing fleet, 
but admitted that since entering Bering Sea she had spoken to two or three other Japanese 
schooners, among which they named the Boso Maru. 


Japanese Poachers Killed By Native Guard July 17 

About 8 o’clock on the morning of July 17 the native guard at Northeast Point heard the 
report of shotguns, which were evidently being fired at seals in the water a short distance 
from shore. The guards could not see more than a few yards owing to a dense fog, and 
at that time were unable to make out any boats. One of the guards went inland to report 
to Agent Lembkey at the watchhouse, and the two remaining, Michael Kozloff and John 
Fratis, proceeded to a point on the shore opposite the firing and, concealing themselves, 
awaited developments. About half an hour later, during which time the shotgun firing 
on the water continued at irregular intervals, the guards discovered three boats a short 
distance out headed for the shore. The one closest in contained three Japanese, one of 
whom occupied a position in the bow with a shotgun in his hands. 

After the occupants of the foremost boat had lowered the sails, and just as they were 
about to land on the beach, the two watchmen, who had remained concealed, appeared 
on the scene and shouted, “Hands up!” The men in the boat instead of complying with this 
command hurriedly turned about and commenced to row the boat away form the shore. 
Guard Kozloff, who was in charge, motioned with his hands and called to them to come 
ashore, and when the boat continued on her way three rifle shots were fired in the water 
close to her. She did not stop, however, and the guards a few seconds later fired six shots 
in rapid succession directly at the boat. Following this shooting the men ceased to row and 
dropped into the bottom of the boat, and the boat slowly drifted in toward shore. The two 
other boats had in the meantime disappeared in the fog. 

Chief Agent Lembkey, who arrived on the scene shortly after the shooting, recovered the 
boat and it was hauled up on the beach. Two of its occupants were dead and the other was 
suffering from a wound in the shoulder. 

The boat was of the same type and equipment as the one captured the day before. Among 
other things it contained a quantity of food, fresh water, 2 loaded shotguns, and 146 loaded 
and 9 empty shells. Most of the loaded shells were charged with buckshot, although on 


546 




Biographies S ♦ Sims 


subsequent examination some were found to contain a heavy lead slug like a rifle bullet. 
The shotguns showed evidence of having been recently fired. The boat also contained a seal 
which apparently had been killed with a charge of buckshot a short time before. 

I learned from the wounded prisoner, whom I interviewed upon my arrival at the island, 
that the boat was not from the schooner whose boat had been captured the day previous, 
but was from another schooner—the Mei Maru. The prisoner further stated that the 
schooner carried a crew of 30 men, and had sailed from Hakodate, Japan, May 23, 1906. 

At the time the Japanese attempted to land, and when the shooting occurred as above 
described, the entire force on guard at that point consisted of two natives, each armed with 
a rifle. 


Poachers Off Zapadni Rookery Fired On 

At Zapadni rookery, which is about 12 miles from Northeast Point, where the events just 
described took place, shotgun firing close inshore was heard at frequent intervals during 
the day, and undoubtedly a large number of seals were killed in the water. These operations 
were carried on under the protection of a dense fog, and it was not until 3 o’clock in the 
afternoon, when it lifted, that the native guard discovered three boats a short distance from 
shore. The boats contained about 18 men and were headed for land. The guards, two in 
number, who were evidently excited over the shooting which had been going on around 
them and who believed that the force, which greatly outnumbered them, was about to land 
and raid the rookery, opened fire without delay. The boats immediately pulled out of sight, 
and it is not known whether any of the marauders were injured. 


Poachers Land and Kill Seals 

Notwithstanding the capture of the boat on the morning of Tuesday July 17, the reports of 
shotguns evidently fired at seals in the water, were heard off different parts of Northeast 
Point almost incessantly during the day. The boom of cannon, probably used for the 
purpose of signaling in the fog, was also heard at frequent intervals. The widely separated 
points at which these shots were heard indicate that several boats were thus engaged. A 
dense fog which hung over the island partially lifted about 8 o’clock p.m., and disclosed a 
schooner riding at anchor less than 300 yards from the breeding rookery on the west side 
of Northeast Point. Although the watchmen failed to discover it, owing to the fog, 18 or 20 
men had landed and were at that time killing seals on the rookery close to the water at a 
point where their operations could not be seen farther inland. 

The presence of the schooner was immediately reported to the watchhouse, and Chief 
Agent Lembkey and Assistant Agent Judge, at the head of a force of about fifteen natives, 
hurried to the scene. In the meantime the raiders, who had evidently been warned of 
the approach of the native guard by an outpost, hurriedly collected the sealskins already 
taken and embarked in their boats, and when the guard arrived at the shore they were 
already a few yards off and rowing for the schooner. Upon their refusing to come ashore, in 
compliance with an order given by the Government agents, the native guard was directed 
to fire. This fire was returned from the deck of the schooner, but no one 31 of the island 
guard was injured. The boats soon came to a stop and the order was given to cease firing. 

The raiding force consisted of a flotilla of five small boats containing about 20 men. It 
appears that two of the boats were being used to carry away skins. The force under the 
Government agents consisted of 15 native, only 6 of whom were armed. 

As the boats drew in shore and it became apparent that the raiders outnumbered the native 
force, Agent Judge concluded that it would be dangerous to attempt to capture the entire 
party with a force armed with only six rifles. In consequence of this the crew of only one of 
small boats were allowed to land, and the remaining boasts were motioned off and returned 
to the schooner, which still remained at anchor a short distance from shore. Had the 


547 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


devastation which the raiders had wrought on the rookery been known at this time, none 
of the boats would have been permitted to return to the schooner. 

The boat which was compelled to return to shore contained, six men, one of whom was 
dead and one wounded. The body of one man, who had evidently fallen overboard when 
he was shot, floated off and was not picked up by the boats. It is believed that the body of a 
third was thrown overboard when the boats reached the schooner. The boats of the raiding 
flotilla were of the same general character as those previously captured.... 

Upon making an examination of the rookeries at the point where the small boats were 
first seen, the Government agents discovered that the raiders had practically wiped out of 
existence one section of a breeding rookery. More than 183 seals had been killed. Of this 
number, 120 had been skinned and the skins loaded into the boats. It was apparent that the 
raiders had been frightened away in the midst of their raid, because 63 dead and wounded 
seals, some partially skinned and other untouched, were found. 

I arrived at St. Paul Island in company with Hon. George M. Bowers, Commissioner of 
Fisheries, on the afternoon of July 20, 1906, on the revenue cutter McCulloch, Capt. J.C. 

Cantwell commanding. The Government agents and the natives were very anxious to get 
rid of the [twelve 32 ] prisoners and they were at once turned over to the McCulloch, which 
proceeded to Unalaska. At that place the ten uninjured men were turned over to the deputy 
United States marshal, and the wounded men, who had been placed under the care of Dr. 

T.B. McClintic, were retained on the cutter. 

The prisoners were again taken on board the cutter on July 31 and carried from Unalaska to 
Kodiak, where a preliminary hearing was had before United States Commissioner Fred D. 

Kelsey. As a result of this hearing they were held to the grand jury and were turned over to 
the custody of United States Marshal L.L. Bowers, at Kodiak, for delivery at Valdez. Chief 
Agent W.I. Lembkey and the native witnesses then proceeded to Valdez [aboard the mail 
steamer Dora 33 ]. 34 

Five of the prisoners pleaded guilty of having killed seals. Six others were convicted of an 
attempt to kill seals, while the remaining prisoner, after a trial in which the jury failed to 
agree, pleaded guilty to the charge of killing seals, and all were sentenced by United States 
District Judge Royal A. Gunnison to three months’ imprisonment in the United States jail 
at Valdez. At the expiration of their sentences all the prisoners were deported to Japan. 35 

President Theodore Roosevelt said in his message to the beginning of the second 
session of the 59th Congress (December 1906), concerning the investigation in the Seal 
Islands, “I commend your attention to the report by Mr. Sims, Solicitor of the Department 
of Commerce and Labor, on this subject.” 36 


Sloss, Leon ( 1858 - 1920 ) 

General Agent and Superintendent, Alaska Commercial Company, St. Paul Island, 
1882-1885 

President, Alaska Commercial Company, 1918-1920 
Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Leon Sloss deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration on May 7, 1892, before Notary Public 
Clement Bennett at San Francisco, California. The following is an excerpt from his depo¬ 
sition. 


548 




Biographies S ♦ Sims - Smith 


I am 33 years of age, a native of California, and 
a resident of San Francisco, California. I was for 
several years a director of the Alaska Commercial 
Company, and a member of the partnership of 
Louis Sloss & Co., and have been engaged for 
the past fifteen years in dealing in wools, hides, 
and fur skins, but have now no interest in seals 
or sealeries. I was superintendent pro tempore of 
the sealeries of Alaska in the interim from 1882 to 
1885, inclusive, during the illness of H.H. McIntyre, 
the regular superintendent, and spent the sealing 
season of those three years on the Pribilof Islands 
in the personal management of the business. I 
am, therefore, by reason of this service and of my 
active employment at all other times in the office 
of the Alaska Commercial Company from 1877 
to this date, acquainted with every aspect of the 
business. 37 


Leon Sloss, President of the Alaska Commercial 
Company, 1918-20. (Samuel P. Johnston, Alaska 
Commercial Company 1868-1940, A More or Less 
"Documented” History, Evidenced by Papers from 
Governmental Files and Books; By Old Letters from 
Company Files; By Newspaper Articles; By Memories of 
Officials and Employes [sic] of Long Standing.,) 



LEON SLOSS 

President 1918-1020 


Smith, Frank Holmes ( 1879 - 1938 ) 

Physician, St. George Island, 1906-1908 


Genealogy 

Frank Holmes Smith, the son of Demetrious M. and Helen B. 
Smith, was born on October 29, 1879, in Lake City, Minnesota. 
Frank married Dolores Fisher, a nursing student from San 
Francisco, in 1911 in San Jose, California. They had one son, 
Harry F. Smith, born in 1912, who became a medical student at 
Rochester University, Rochester, New York. 

Biographical Sketch 

Frank Holmes Smith graduated from Stanford University and 
Cooper Medical College (later Stanford Medical College). After 
his work in the Pribilof Islands, he settled and opened his medi¬ 
cal practice in San Bruno, San Mateo County, California. He was 
murdered by a patient on February 19, 1938, at his medical office 
in San Bruno. 38 



Dr. Frank Holmes 
Smith. fSan Mateo 
Times, San Mateo, 
California, February 
21, 1938, 1.) 


549 















Pribilof Islands: The People 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

Dr. Frank Holmes Smith began his medical duty on St. George Island for the North 
American Commercial Company during the spring of 1906. He relieved physician Mark 
A. Williamson. Dr. Smith remained on St. George Island until the spring of 1908. 


Smith, John Anthony “Tony” ( 1942 - 2006 ) 

Attorney 

Genealogy 

John Anthony “Tony” Smith was born at Poughkeepsie, New York, on September 10, 
1942, to John C. and Eunice (Hatfield) Smith. He died on December 8, 2006, at Steamboat 
Springs, Colorado. 39 

Biographical Sketch 

Tony Smith graduated from Cornell University. After serving with the U.S. Navy in 
Vietnam, he returned to Cornell Law School and graduated with a JD degree. In 1971, 
Smith moved to Alaska, where he practiced law for twenty-five years. He specialized in 
representing Alaska Native corporations on legal matters concerning fisheries, oil and 
gas agreements, international agreements, and environmental concerns. In 1986, Alaska 
Governor Steve Cowper appointed Smith Commissioner of Commerce and Economic 
Development. He moved to Washington, D.C. in 1995 to become a partner in the law firm 
Schmeltzer, Aptaker, and Shepard. 40 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Tony Smith assisted the Aleut communities of the Pribilof Islands in their quest for self- 
determination. He provided counsel on the Fur-Seal Act Amendments of 1983, and he 
established the Pribilof Islands Trust, among many other legal matters. 41 


Speers, William “Will” Fred ( 1877 / 1879 - 1966 ) 

Physician at Funter Bay, 1943-1944, and St. Paul Island, 1944-1945 

William Fred Speers was born at Dunbar, Pennsylvania, March 29, 1877 (or 1879), to 
druggist George Warden Speers and Mary (Rickard) Speers. On July 20, 1904, William 
Fred Speers married Agnes Elizabeth Peterson at Davenport, Iowa. Agnes, born June 13, 
1884, in Davenport, was the daughter of Henry Peterson and Clara M. (Klug) Peterson. 
William and Agnes had one son, Frederick W. Speers, born in Davenport on July 26, 
1906. Agnes Speers died October 19, 1949, at San Diego, California. William Fred Speers 
died July 12, 1966, at Escondido, California, and was buried at Fort Rosecrans National 
Cemetery in San Diego. He had been a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps in World War I. 


550 







Biographies S ♦ Smith - Speers 


Their son, Frederick Speers, died July 31,1971, at Escondido, California, after a successful 
career as a newspaper publisher in Escondido and in North Platte, Nevada. 42 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Dr. Will F. Speers became the physician for the Pribilovians at Funter Bay in 1943, 43 and 
he wrote about his experiences to friends in personal letters. His somewhat dreary assess¬ 
ment echoed those of the agents at the Funter Bay camps, but he also spoke to the posi¬ 
tive spirit of the Aleuts in acknowledging their Funter Bay and homecoming tragedies. 
The following excerpts are from one such letter. 

The trip from Funter Bay was in a way uneventful.... We stopped at Kodiak for 48 hours 
and there picked up a couple of convoy ships and two escorting ones, we stopped again 
at Dutch Harbor where we took on some native troops for duty on the island during the 
sealing season. Neither of these two places was interesting in more than name only. All the 
time I was aboard ship I was kept very busy due to the fact that we had approximately 500 
men, women and children sleeping on 3 tier high canvas bunks in two forward holds and 
conditions were far from being comfortable for them. Being two weeks on the boat it was 
only natural that there should be an epidemic of colds and influenza break out in addition 
to sea sickness and sundry of other diseases. 

It was with a great deal of relief that we sighted St. Paul Island on May 13th. We anchored 
off shore as there are no piers and every thing including all passengers had to be lightered 
off. It took two weeks to unload the ship as there were times due to wheather [sic] when 
nothing could be done. I went off in a hurry on the evening of the 14th as one of my 
patients was kind enough to wait until she landed to give birth to a nice little baby girl. 

Every thing went along fine. Am expecting one a month from now on and maybe more. 

We were all due for terrible discouraging times. The army had been occupying the village 
during the natives’ absence and as they had to leave in such a hurry they left their house 
and contents virtually intact. Soldiers moved in and in many instances completely wrecked 
the interior of the house. All these people were so proud of their little homes. They were 
nice little 4 room concrete houses completely furnished. The army took over, broke into 
houses, drove nails in the walls, deliberately destroyed furniture, radios, stoves, bedding, 
and every thing. To make a long story short it was a fine piece of sabotage and nothing else 
will describe it. Many of these people had no beds left in their houses nor stoves. Furniture 
was moved from one house to another and wrecked. Their linens and towels and bedding 
were either destroyed or used as cleaning rags and when dirty was thrown in a heap in 
some corner of the house. All this also applies to my house, my hospital and my dispensary. 

We all know now about the ravages of war but it is hard to learn it coming from your own 
soldiers. Enough of this! 

The village was just as I imagined and basically lovely, located on a hill on a peninsula at the 
south end of the island. Every house has a wonderful view on one side or the other of the 
sea. 

My house with the dispensary in connection and the hospital are marvels. There is a little 
entrance hall to the house and from this is a door leading to the dispensary with its three 
connecting rooms each about 12 x 12, another door takes one into my portion of the house 
which consists of living room, 2 bed rooms and a marvelous kitchen with a breakfast nook 
and a gas stove for cooking, and a tiled bath room. Up stairs is a large servants room the 
remaining being partially finished. 

The hospital is about 50 feet from the house and I go out a side entrance to a semi¬ 
basement entrance in the hospital. In the basement 1 have a big X-Ray room also a Dark 
room, laundry room and linen room, on the first floor is a waiting room, 2 rooms for the 
dentist, 2 three bed wards and a bath and a kitchen. On the second floor is two more three 


551 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


bed wards and bath that are used chiefly for tubercular patients. I have a registered nurse, 2 
native nurses and a janitor. Both places have hot water heat & electricity. Have a wonderful 
supply of drugs and operating equipment. 

We had a dance last night given by the Foulk [sic] Fur Co to every one and today July 4th 
they put on a celebration with foot races, pie eating contest, ect. ect. [sic]. They do this 
every year but it was especially big this year due to the soldiers present. The dance was 
really nice. All the civilian employees with their wives (6 wives) were there and the natives 
and about 30 [native] soldiers. The native girls were a surprise to every one. They were 
all so nicely dressed and the soldiers. What a time they had. Some of those boys had not 
danced with a girl for two years and when they turned loose their jitter bug and rug cutting 
antics it really was something. Needless to say a good time was had by all. The dance hall 
is on the second story of the Community building is about 40 by 60 feet with a nice hard 
wood well waxed floor. The orchestra consisted of two pianos, 3 guitars, a banjo and a 
mandolin. 

Today at two P. M. July 4th started for the kids. Pink lemonade, foot races, nickel scramble 
and pie eating contest. The nickel scramble was good. A wash tub was half filled with 
oatmeal and in it a double handful of nickels was stirred. 15 youngsters raced to the tub to 
dig the nickels out. They all tried to get in it at once, eventually the tub was overturned with 
nickels and oatmeal scattered all over the road. It turned out to be one of the finest jam 
sessions I’ve ever seen. They finally got all the money. A rolling pin throwing contest for the 
women at a dummy was not bad either. 

It was marvelous to see the miriaculous [sic] change that has taken place in these people 
since returning here to their island from the primitive filthy place that they were living in 
at Funter Bay. There many of their dwelling places were so filthy that no description fits 
them, the people were sullen, discontented and down hearted and wanted only to get back 
here to their homes. Arriving here every thing changed the enthusiasm that they showed in 



Dr. William Speers replaced Dr. Samuel Berenberg, shown here standing with Anna 
Stepetin in front of the hospital at Funter Bay Cannery Internment Camp, Admiralty 
Island, Alaska, 1942. (Fredericka Martin Photograph Coll., 91-223-283, Archives, Alaska 
and Polar Regions Coll., Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.) 


552 



Biographies S ♦ Speers 


cleaning up their houses, scrubbing floors, washing walls and ceilings, making temporary 
furniture to replace that the army had destroyed all was done with never a complaint 
that was sincere. They were glad to do it. Now that their places are back again to some 
semblance of what they were two year ago they are paying some attention to their families. 
In Funter, impetigo and little crawly things in the hair, dirty clothes and faces were almost 
general amongst the children. Now every thing has changed, no impetigo, clean heads and 
clothes and in every way different. 

The men go hunting when they have time for some of the various birds that abound every 
place. Again they do their hunting at times by lying back of a big rock with a long handled 
net in their hands and when a flock of caushuskies [choochkies or least auklets] come flying 
over up goes the net and several of these birds are caught. They are a small bird slightly 
larger than a robin and their breasts make wonderful eating. Yesterday a group of natives 
went out to one of the cliffs and came back with a couple of buckets filled with eggs that 
were slightly smaller that [sic] the average hen egg. They were white and sort of spotted 
with green [murre eggs]. 

The women are good cooks and like to bake bread and cakes. Seal meat, hearts and livers 
are also included in their diet. Seal liver is a real delicacy, like calf liver. The[re] is a nice 
little Russian church here presided over by Father Baranoff who is well thought of by all the 
natives. They are quite religious and all expenses of the church including the priests salary 
is paid from the community or canteen fund. The canteen is no small institution. They 
sell items of clothing, food, candy, ect. [sic], that are not issued by the government. It is 
purely a native affair entirely run by them, They at the present time have a cash balance of 
over $16,000. Funds are spent on anything that is of benefit to the entire group. They have 
a fine movie outfit, recently bought a good juke box and a couple of pool tables. The men 
are inveterate gambles [sic] and not small ones either. Money doesn’t mean a lot to them 
as a whole other than to buy luxuries or something better than the ordinary. They all have 



Children lined up for whooping cough immunization at the Funter Bay Cannery 
Internment Camp, Admiralty Island, Alaska, early 1940s. (Fredericka Martin 
Photograph Coll., 91-223-338, Archives, Alaska and Polar Regions Coll., Rasmuson 
Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.) 


553 







Pribilof Islands: The People 



radios and all manner of household equipment. 
They all buy through Sears Roebuck and sometimes 
it seems as though they order the entire catalogue. 
The government gives them house rent free, two 
clothing issues a year and provisions dependent 
upon the size of the family besides furnishing, 
doctor, dentist and school teachers. When they 
get too old they are pensioned. They get so much 
for each sealskin, this amount goes into a pot and 
is apportioned out according to a mans standing 
1st, 2nd or 3rd class. Their account is credited 
with the amount due them and they can draw any 
reasonable amount through the agent at any time. 

It is the life of Reilley. Where else in the world is 
there a group of people born into such security. 
They have what we are striving a life time for. 

During sealing and foxing seasons there is a few 
weeks of hard work, after that mostly maintenance 
and chores to do. No wonder these people[— 

]“They Sing, they play and they dance.” If it wasn’t 
for my knowledge of the rest of the world I would 
envy them. 44 


Military personnel on St. Paul Island, 
circa 1943. (Alaska State Library, Evan 
Hill Photograph Coll., P343-353.) 



St. Paul Island resident Vlass Pankoff in tuberculosis ward at Funter Bay Cannery 
Internment Camp, Admiralty Island, Alaska, circa 1942. (Fredericka Martin 
Photograph Coll., 91-223-297, Archives, Alaska and Polar Regions Coll., Rasmuson 
Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.) 


554 




















Military personnel on St. Paul Island, circa 1943. (Alaska State Library, Evan Hill Photograph Coll., 
P343-3S0.) 


* 



Military personnel on St. Paul Island, circa 1943. (Alaska State Library, Evan Hill Photograph Coll., 
P343-392.) 


555 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


Stanley-Brown, Joseph ( 1858 - 1941 ) 

Geologist 

Special Treasury Agent, 1891-1893 

Superintendent, North American Commercial Company, 1893-1899 

Genealogy 

Joseph Stanley-Brown was born August 19, 
1858, in Washington, D.C. Joseph was the son of 
John Leopold Brown, a carpenter, and Elizabeth 
Frances (Marr) Stanley. Joseph’s grandfather 
Nathaniel Stanley had fled to Holland, presum¬ 
ably to escape an English debtors prison, in 1819. 
“Under the name of James Brown, [Nathaniel 
Stanley] came to Baltimore with his wife and 
two small sons [John and Thomas], becoming 
a naturalized citizen under that name. When 
the records were verified in 1888, James’ grand¬ 
son Joseph adopted the surname of “Stanley- 
Brown” 45 at the urging of his mother-in-law, 
Mrs. James Garfield. Joseph Brown had married 
former President James Garfield’s daughter Mary 
(1867-1947) on June 14, 1888, in Mentor, Ohio. 
Mrs. James Garfield told him, “Joseph, you’ll lose 
that Stanley from your name if you don’t annex it 
permanently.” 46 Joseph and Mary had three chil¬ 
dren. Rudolph (1889-1944) became an artist and 
architect, and married Katherine Schermerhorn Oliver; Ruth (1892-1981) was a writer 
and editor and married diplomatic historian and State Department official Herbert Feis; 
Margaret (1895-1958), graduated from Vassar in 1919, became a surgeon, and married 
Max K. Sellers. 

Joseph Stanley-Brown died on November 2, 1941, in Pasadena, California. Urns 
containing the ashes of Joseph and Mary Garfield Stanley-Brown reside in the Garfield 
Mausoleum Monument, next to those of President Garfield and his wife Lucretia, at Lake 
View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio. 47 

Biographical Sketch 

At seventeen, Joseph Stanley-Brown left Seton High School in Washington, D.C., 

to become stenographer and secretary to John Wesley Powell (q.v.), then in charge of a 
geological survey in the Rocky Mountains. 

At the same time, to acquire technical knowledge, he studied chemistry, anatomy and 
physiology at night in the medical department of Columbian (later George Washington) 

University. At that time Powell was endeavoring to consolidate the three independent 
geological surveys being supported by the government and in seeking congressional 



Harry Chichester and Joseph Stanley- 
Brown, probably examining photographic 
plates, St. Paul Island, circa 1890s. (NAA, 
Arctic: Aleut series, lot 24, 1463100.) 


556 








Biographies S ♦ Stanley-Brown 


support for his plan [he] approached General James A. Garfield (q.v.), then a representative 
from Ohio.... From 1878-1880, Stanley-Brown acted as Garfield’s secretary, without pay, 
in addition to his regular duties in the geological office. On July 1, 1879, Powell’s efforts 
culminated in the establishment of the U.S. Geological Survey, whereupon Stanley-Brown 
spent five months as secretary of a public land commission, making a tour of inspection to 
the Pacific coast. With Garfield’s nomination as presidential candidate he left the geological 
survey to become personal secretary to Garfield and on his inauguration returned to 
Washington as private secretary to the President. 48 

After President Garfield’s death, Mrs. Garfield requested that Stanley-Brown remain 
in Washington, D.C., to assist her in cataloging and indexing the late president’s per¬ 
sonal papers. After a year's work, she provided financial assistance for him to attend Yale 
University’s Sheffield Scientific School, where he graduated with a PhD in 1888. 

Following Yale and a year of graduate studies at the University of Heidelberg, Stanley- 
Brown became an assistant geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey. During his tenure at 
the Geological Survey, the Secretary of the Interior at the request of the Secretary of the 
Treasury ordered Stanley-Brown to the Pribilof Islands to gather information in support 
of the United States over a growing dispute with Great Britain concerning legal rights 
to hunt the fur seal in the Bering Sea. Upon his return to Washington in 1893, Stanley- 
Brown accepted a position with the North American Commercial Company (NACC) as 
superintendent of its Pribilof Islands concession. As superintendent, 

he had charge of the company’s affairs on the Pribilof Islands and Unalaska. There, in the 
summer of 1898, he met Edward H. Harriman. The next year at Harriman’s request he 
became assistant secretary of the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific railway systems. For 
three years, he traveled extensively in this country and Mexico as Harriman’s personal 
representative. In 1902, he became assistant to William H. Baldwin (q.v), president of the 
Long Island Railroad Company. Upon the latter’s death the following year, Stanley-Brown 
became associated with the New York investment banking house of Fisk & Robinson, in 
charge of its railway investments and the examination of properties that the firm was asked 
to finance. In 1915, he became the partner of George H. Robinson in the successor firm of 
Robinson & Co., continuing until January 1929, when the partners disposed of their entire 
interests to Sutro & Co. of San Francisco and retired. Although for nearly forty years he 
was identified with large financial and industrial developments, he retained his interest in 
scientific matters and was active from the beginning in the Geological Society of America, 
serving as editor of its proceedings from 1892-1941. 49 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

While Joseph Stanley-Brown was on the Pribilof Islands in 1891 at the behest of Secretary 
of the Treasury Charles Foster, Great Britain and the United States agreed to submit 
their dispute over pelagic sealing to international arbitration. He returned to the Pribilofs 
and was there from June 16 through August 3, 1892, to “prepare comparative data for 
Secretary of State John W. Foster. In March 1893, he sailed for France, as expert with the 
American commission to the Paris tribunal which in August of that year held that the 
United States had no right to set up a mare clausum [closed sea] and that damages must 
be paid for seized vessels, but consented to certain regulations for seal hunting. These 
[decisions] proved disastrous for the protection of seal herds and it was not until 1911 
that the matter was finally settled.” 30 


557 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


Stanley-Brown’s decision to accept a position as superintendent with the NACC after 
his return from the Fur-Seal Arbitration hearings may have been influenced in part by a 
minor scandal over his pay while he was in the service of the U.S. government. The allega¬ 
tions involved several others as well, although the focus of the attack appeared to be on 
actions of Secretary of State, John Foster. However, regarding Stanley-Brown, a news story 
under the headline “The Double Pay Scandal” stated in part that “according to the records 
of the State Department, [Stanley-Brown] is on the staff of the Bering Sea Commission at 
$15 per day. But the records of the Treasury Department also disclose that Mr. Brown is 
commissioned as an officer of the Treasury Department to make certain investigations of 
seal life for which he is drawing pay at the rate of $10 per day. Thus, Mr. Brown receives 
$25 per day, which is $9,125 per year, or more than the pay of a Cabinet officer.”’ 1 

Stanley-Brown served as NACC superintendent on the Pribilof Islands from 1894 
to 1899. On October 8, 1897, Treasury Agent Joseph Murray wrote in the St. Paul Island 
Agent’s Log: 

Today the Natives’ Library was opened for the season, and when Agent Murray visited 
there this evening he found it well patronized by both old and young men: - some reading 
and some learning to play the new games sent up from San Francisco. 

Mr. Joseph Stanley-Brown, Lessees Agent, very kindly gave the use of a house, cleared, 
repaired and fitted up for a Library; and the natives have shown more appreciation of this 
action than I have ever known them to show for anything else. 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Joseph Stanley-Brown deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration on May 9, 1892, before 
Notary Public Sevellon A. Brown at Washington, D.C., a portion of which follows. 

I am 36 years of age; am a citizen of the United States; reside in Mentor, Ohio; am by 
profession a geologist, and as such am employed in the U.S. Geological Survey. In April, 

1891.1 was ordered by the honorable the Secretary of the Interior, to whose direction the 
officers of the Geological Survey are subject, to report to the honorable the Secretary of 
the Treasury [Charles Foster] personally for special service. This I did, and on the 27th of 
that month I received from the latter a temporary appointment as special agent. On May 

4.1 was given instruction to visit the Pribilof Islands, for the purpose of studying the seal 
life ... with the view of procuring full and accurate information not only as to its present 
general condition, but also more specifically as to any increase or diminution of the seal 
herd.... 

In the prosecution of my investigations I deemed it desirable to photograph all the 
rookeries often from two positions; to make a general topographic survey of both islands 
on a scale of 1 mile to the inch and to prepare detailed charts of the rookeries upon the 
unusually large scale of 264 feet to the inch. In carrying out this work I examined the 
entire shorelines of St. Paul and St. George, and there is not an area of a mile square upon 
either that I have not traversed nor a square hundred feet upon a rookery that I have not 
repeatedly inspected. The close attention to topographic forms demanded in platting 
rookeries with so much minuteness and the care required in selecting the best positions 
to secure photographs inevitably drew me in close contact with seal life.... In all my work 
upon the islands I was constantly attended by native Aleuts, who assisted in transporting 
my instruments and other impedimenta. Several of these could speak fair English. Our 
intimate daily relations, which extended over nearly three months, were under conditions 
that offered neither incentive to secrecy nor to deception, and, while their general views 
on and theory of seal life are to be received with caution, they are keen observers of little 


558 





Biographies S ♦ Stanley-Brown - Stepetin 



Joseph Stanley-Brown at the North American Commercial Company office. (AMNH 
Special Collections, Chichester Coll., HDC270, neg. 034953.) 


details, and from them, their friends, and old Russian records on the island I received many 
valuable hints of a natural-history and historical character. 52 

I arrived on the islands June 9, 1891, and remained there until September 10, 1891.1 made 
a survey of said islands and also the seal rookeries on both of said islands. The charts signed 
by me and marked A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, and I< were made by me during said survey 
of said rookeries and represent the grounds covered by the same. The gray color on said 
charts so signed by me, and the red color on the reprints of the same, represent the places 
occupied by breeding seals in 1891. 53 


Stepetin, Gabriel (Gavril/Gavriel) ( 1911 - 1991 ) 

Storekeeper, Movie Theater Owner, and Leader of Pribilof Civil Rights Movement, St. 

Paul Island 

Genealogy 

Gabriel (Gavril) Stepetin was born April 8 , 1911, the son of Elary Stepetin and Anna 
(Ilian) Stepetin, at St. Paul Island, Alaska. At the age of two, Gavril Stepetin was ad¬ 
opted by George and Agafia Kochergin and was named Gavril Stepetin Kochergin. In 
1939, Gavril Stepetin Kochergin dropped the “Kochergin” from his name , 54 although he 
continued to be occasionally known as Gavriel S. Kochergin . 55 Gabriel Stepetin died in 
November 1991. Gabriel’s wife, Xenia, died in December 1991. 


559 






















*iU 



NORTHEAST POINT ROOKEHY 

ST. PAUL ISLAND 

Bering Sea Alaska. 

Hiuwvd by 

JOHKPH STANLEY-BROWN 
UtOI 

SI. r-f*" 


♦ 4 J Pm/uturftni <i/« - ntrrf npefalion.. 


ET2 


Mutt or UJU/hrm pros* 


Set Uon 


Northeast Point Rookery, St. Paul Island, surveyed by Joseph Stanley-Brown, 1891. (U.S. 
Congress, Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, (Washington, DC: GPO, 1895), foldout map no. 7.) 


560 














Chart E 




Tolstoi and Lagoon Rookeries, St. Paul Island, surveyed by Joseph Stanley-Brown, 1891. (U.S. Congress, 
Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3,foldout map no. 10.) 


561 

















Pribilof Islands: The People 


Biographical Sketch 

Gabriel Stepetin was a St. Paul Island leader for many years. He spoke of his life history in 
the documentary Islands of Time (Patricia Stanley, producer, and Dennis Remick, writer; 
Fort Yukon, AI<: Silky Way Productions) made with the Council of Athabascan Tribal 
Governments. 

According to St. Paul Island elder Larry Merculieff, “Gabe had written down what ra¬ 
tions people had during the food rationing days in the 1940s and ’50s—mostly bread and 
water and whatever they could get hunting.” He also spoke of their education. He said that 
“all they were taught to say is ‘yes sir, no sir’ and the rest of the time they played music 
records in class or played with toys and he felt embarrassed that he would be in the same 
classes as little kids.” In his day, when a man reached the age of sixteen, he had to work 
for the government. 

During the islanders’ relocation to Funter Bay, some of the men met leaders of the 
Alaska Native Brotherhood (ANB) in Juneau. The ANB was at the forefront of the Alaska 
Native human rights movement. Following repatriation to the Pribilof Islands, some St. 
Paul men formed an ANB chapter. Members had difficulty planning their freedom be¬ 
cause the agent refused to allow meetings of any sort. Gabe came up with the idea of put¬ 
ting on plays and skits for the white people in the village. The government agent agreed. 
At times when they were supposed to be preparing for a play, the men met secretly. They 
discussed organizing an Indian Reorganization Act of 1932 (IRA) chartered tribal entity. 
In addition to Gabe, members of the clandestine group included Iliodor Merculieff, 
Alexander Melovidov, Terenty Philemonof Sr., and Elary Gromoff. With the help of Felix 
Cohen, attorney for ANB, in 1950 they succeeded in organizing an IRA entity under U.S. 
laws, and launched a claim against the U.S. government for breach of duty to treat their 
people fairly and honorably. The claim was successfully prosecuted in 1976. 

Gabe Stepetin served as the store manager for the government for many years and 
finally negotiated with the government to pass ownership of the store to the tribe in the 
1960s. He was active in the freedom battle, including smuggling letters off the island to 
Howard Rock, then editor of the only statewide Alaska Native newspaper, the Tundra 
Times. Rock published the letters, which came to the attention of the Human Rights 
Commission headed by Willard Bowman (see Bowman’s biography). The commission 
held hearings on the island, and Gabe Stepetin testified, along with Elary Gromoff Sr., 
Mamant Emanoff, Peter Kochergin, and John Misikin. Their testimony spurred a con¬ 
gressional investigation instigated by then-U.S. Senator from Alaska Bob Bartlett (see 
Bartlett’s biography), resulting in the Pribilovian civil rights bill, ironically called the Fur 
Seal Act of 1966. The Act allowed the Aleuts for the first time to participate in state and 
federal elections, to organize a city under state laws, and to have the government homes 
transferred to the people occupying them. Gabe Stepetin served as the tribal president. 

In 1968, Stepetin hired college students Patrick Pletnikoff, from St. George Island, 
and Larry Merculieff, from St. Paul Island, to lobby in Washington, D.C., for funds to 
implement the Act and create a city form of government. They succeeded in securing the 


562 





Biographies S ♦ Stanley-Brown - Stepetin 


funds required to create municipal governments under state law on both St. Paul and St. 
George in 1971. 56 


Stepetin, Auxenty “Irish” ( 1907 - 1999 ) 

St. Paul Island Power Plant Operator, 1950s 
Genealogy 

Auxenty Stepetin was born December 26, 1907, to Dorofey and Lubov Stepetin on St. 
Paul Island, Alaska. 57 Auxenty was the second eldest of seven siblings, who included step¬ 
brother Vassii (b. February 8, 1893); Xenia (Auxenia; b. February 8, 1899); Helena (b. May 
14, 1905); Epatie (Epaty; b. April 13, 1909); Alexy (b. February 26, 1919); and Victor (b. 
May 1, 1920). 58 Auxenty Stepetin died on St. Paul Island on March 21, 1999. 59 



AUXENIA STEPETIN, AGE ABOUT 75, THE OLDEST ALEUT ON 
THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 


Auxenia Stepetin, age 75, St. Paul Island, 
circa 1914. (E. Lester Jones, Report of Alaska 
Investigations in 1914, 152). Curiously, no woman 
named Auxenia Stepetin with a birth date 
that approximated 1839, the estimated date of 
Auxenia’s birth, was listed in any of the Pribilof 
Islands census records. This photograph with a 
similar caption was also depicted in Islands of 
the Seals, 1982, page 80. 



Irish Stepetin with a large halibut, St. Paul 
Island, circa 1941. (Fredericka Martin 
Photograph Coll., 91-223-132, Archives, Alaska 
and Polar Regions Coll., Rasmuson Library, 
University of Alaska Fairbanks.) 


563 








Pribilof Islands: The People 


Biographical Sketch 

Auxenty “Irish” Stepetin operated the St. Paul Island power plant in the 1950s and opened 
the first locally owned movie theater, called Irish’s Theater. It was one of five local private 
businesses allowed on the island during the 1950s. 60 


Sumner, Charles ( 1811 - 1874 ) 

U.S. Senator, Massachusetts, 1851-1874 

Genealogy 

Charles Sumner was born on January 6, 1811, 
in Boston, Massachusetts, to Charles Pinckney 
Sumner and Relief (Jacobs) Sumner. Charles 
Sumner died on March 11, 1874, at Washington, 
D.C. 61 

Biographical Sketch 

Charles Sumner graduated from Harvard 
University in 1830 and from Harvard Law School 
in 1833. He opened his law office in Boston, where 
he became politically active. He served in the 
U.S. Senate from 1851 to 1874, and was a leader 
among the opponents of slavery. “His vitriolic at¬ 
tacks upon slavery and its defenders brought a physical assault on him by Representative 
Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina (May 22, 1856), inflicting injuries from which 
he never fully recovered. He was the first prominent statesman to urge emancipation 
(October 1861).” 62 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Charles Sumner served as chairman of the Senate’s United States Committee on Foreign 
Affairs. In that position, he was perhaps best-known for his three-hour “Speech of Hon. 
Charles Sumner of Massachusetts on the cession of Russian America to the United 
States” delivered on April 9, 1867. 63 In preparation for the speech, Sumner invested heav¬ 
ily in researching the facts about the history of Russian America, the financial benefits of 
the purchase, and geographical and environmental descriptions of the country. For this 
information he depended on materials from the Congressional Library and from naviga¬ 
tors, explorers, and naturalists such as the Smithsonian Institution’s Spencer F. Baird, and 
Henry Martyn Bannister, Ferdinand Bischoff, William H. Dali, George Gibbs, and Charles 
Bryant. Sumner also relied on the reports of Robert Kennicott (1859-1862 explorations), 
Henry Bannister, and Charles Pease (Western Union Telegraph Expedition). 64 

Sumner opened his speech with: 



U.S. Senator Charles Sumner. (NAA, 
Stanley Brown Coll., photo lot 54-205.) 


564 








Biographies S ♦ Stepetin - Sumner 


Mr. President: You have just listened to the reading of the treaty by which Russia cedes to 
the United States all her possessions on the North American continent in consideration of 
$7,200,000, to be paid by the United States. On the one side is the cession of a vast country 
with its jurisdiction and its resources of all kinds; on the other side is the purchase-money. 

Such is this transaction on its face. 65 

The speech covered the climate, indigenous populations, and natural resources, in¬ 
cluding those found on the Pribilof Islands. 

There has been much exaggeration with regard to the profits of the Russian corporation. 

An English writer of authority calls them “immense,” and adds that formerly they were 
much greater. The number of skins reported at times is prodigious although this fails to 
reveal precisely the profits. For instance, Pribilof collected within two years on the islands 
north of Alaska, which bear his name, the skins of 2,000 sea otter, 6,000 dark ice foxes, 

40,000 sea bears or ursine seals, together with 1,000 poods of walrus ivory. The pood is 
a Russian weight of thirty-six pounds. Lutke mentions that in 1803 no less than 800,000 
skins of the ursine seal were accumulated in the factory at Ounalaska of which 700,000 
were thrown into the sea. From 1787 to 1817 ... the Ounalaska district yielded upwards of 
2,500,000 seal skins; and from 1817 to 1838, during which time the company was in power, 
the same district yielded upwards of 579,000 seal skins. Assuming what is improbable, 
that these skins were sold at twenty-five rubles each, some calculating genius has ciphered 
out the sum total of proceeds at more than eighty-five million rubles; or calling the ruble 
seventy-five cents, a total of more than sixty-three million dollars. 66 

By a vote of thirty-seven to two on June 20,1867, the Senate ratified President Andrew 
Johnson’s March 30, 1867, Treaty Concerning the Cession of the Russian Possessions 
in North America by his Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias to the United States of 
America. In 1944, diplomat and international law specialist David Hunter Miller wrote of 
Senator Sumner’s influence: 

It is generally thought, and with good reason, that the Alaska Treaty would not have 
been approved by the Senate if it had not been supported by Senator Charles Sumner, 
of Massachusetts. In 1867 Sumner was a national figure and one of the most important 
leaders of the Republican Party; he was Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign 
Relations; he was outstanding in the opposition to President Johnson, an opposition which 
had a majority in both Houses of Congress; any policy, and particularly any foreign policy, 
of the administration which Sumner then advocated was well-nigh certain of success in the 
Senate. 

It has been pointed out above that Sumner learned of the Alaska Treaty about midnight 
of March 29-30 and that his first attitude was noncommittal; nine days later, on April 8, 

Sumner reported the treaty favorably from committee and made his celebrated speech for 
it. 67 

It is worth noting that within forty years the U.S. Treasury recovered $9,800,000 
through revenues earned from the Pribilof Islands fur-seal industry, 68 an amount consid¬ 
erably more than the purchase price of the Territory of Alaska. 


565 





Prjbilof Islands: The People 


Swineford, Alfred Peter (1834-1909) 

Newspaper Publisher 

Genealogy 

Alfred Peter Swineford was born September 14, 
1834, son of Samuel Swineford and Jane Collins, at 
Ashland, Ohio. Alfred married Psyche Cyntheria 
Flower, descendant of Revolutionary soldier 
Major Zephon Flower, at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, 
January 1857. The couple had one daughter, 
Nelly Flower Swineford, born at La Crescent, 
Minnesota, August 14, 1858. Nelly married 
Edward Orr Stafford, son of Marquette druggist 
Henry Hinckley Stafford and Catherine Lewis, at 
Marquette, Michigan, February 6, 1884. Psyche 
died at Marquette, Michigan in 1881. Alfred mar¬ 
ried a second time in 1886 to Minnie Smith in 
Michigan. Alfred Peter Swineford died October 
26, 1909, at Juneau, Alaska, and his remains were 
interred at Marquette, Michigan. 69 

Biographical Sketch 

Alfred P. Swineford’s daughter, Nelly Flower, 
wrote the following biography of Swineford’s 
life while pursuing her Michigan application for 
membership in the Marquette Chapter of the 
Daughters of the American Revolution: 

Alfred [Swineford] was the great grandson of 
Albrecht Schweinforth born in Bavaria, Germany, 
who came to America in 1754. Alfred Swineford came to Cheboygan, Michigan from 
Cleveland, Ohio, by steamer in 1853. He did not remain long in Cheboygan but went into 
Wisconsin and Minnesota where he did newspaper work.... For a period of years he did 
newspaper work in Chicago. He was a reporter for the Chicago Times, and later a reporter 
for the Chicago Tribune. During all these years he was studying law, and was admitted to 
the bar in Minnesota, in Michigan, and in 1906 in Alaska. 

He came to Negaunee, Michigan in 1867, where he remained three years. This section of 
Michigan was comparatively new at this time. From Negaunee he went to Marquette, Mich, 
in 1870 where he started a newspaper, "The Mining Journal.” This paper still bears the name 
some sixty years later. He retained interest in this paper until 1889. 

Mr. Swineford greatly aided the mining industry of the Lake Superior region in those 
early pioneer days by helping to enlist capital to carry on the work. To this end he issued 
a “Review of the Copper, Iron, Silver, Salt [sic] and other Material Interests of the South 
Shore of Lake Superior” [Mining Journal, 1876-1882, Marquette, Michigan]. Thousands of 
these copies were subscribed for and were distributed throughout this country and Europe, 
bringing Michigan’s resources to the attention of capitalists all over the country. 


Governor of Alaska, 1885-1889 



Alfred P. Swineford 


Alfred P Swineford. (Jeannette Paddock 
Nichols, 1924, Alaska: a History of 
Its Administration, Exploitation, and 
Industrial Development During Its First 
Half Century Under the Rule of the United 
States, 88.) 


566 













Biographies S ♦ Swineford 


He served one term and one extra session in the Michigan Legislature, House of 
Representatives in 1871-72. He represented the district in which he lived. This district 
comprised the counties of Marquette, Delta, Menominee, and Schoolcraft, which was 
about one-half the area of the upper Peninsula. From this area mentioned, four more 
counties have since been created: Iron, Dickinson, Luce, and Alger. He served as mayor of 
Marquette for two terms. Was Commissioner of Mineral Statistics for Michigan in 1883. 

He was also agent for Keystone Iron Co. In 1885 he was appointed Governor of Alaska 
and sent to Sitka in September of that year. He held the governorship for four years under 
President Cleveland. He remained in Alaska for ten years more where he established 
newspapers, practiced law on occasions, and served as Inspector of Surveyors and Land 
Offices, under President Cleveland’s second term. 70 

Swineford’s political and newspaper career is described in greater detail in an 1888 
Michigan biography of their state officers and members of congress: 

He came to Negaunee, Michigan in 1867 and published the Mining and Manufacturing 
News, the first paper at Negaunee. He started the Mining Journal, at Marquette, in 1868, 
and is still part owner of that paper. Prior to coming to Michigan he had published the Star, 
at Albert Lea, Minn.; Banner, at La Crescent, Minn.; started the first daily at La Crosse, 

Wisconsin; published the Daily Enquirer at Milwaukee, in 1860, and the Democratic Press 
at Fond Du Lac, in 1864-5-6. Then, was in the oil business in Canada, than an express 
messenger, thence to Lake Superior. He was a Representative in the legislature of 1871-2, 
and was a commissioner to the New Orleans exposition. 71 

Other than political endeavors, the importance of reporting the news was a primary 
force in Swineford’s life which is seen as he ventured to his new post as Governor of 
Alaska in 1885. While at Portland, Oregon, Swineford purchased all the necessary print¬ 
ing materials to start a newspaper and shipped them to Sitka, then the capitol of the ter¬ 
ritory. 


At a meeting of citizens and officials, a publication company was formed with a paid-up 
capital of six hundred dollars—the cost of the printing outfit—and it was then resolved to 
publish a newspaper at Sitka. In the person of the Governor the association had available 
a practical publisher, printer and editor, whose reputation justified the belief that their 
contemplated newspaper would be published in form, and edited, if need be, with audacity. 
With the aid of a typo discovered among the marines, the Governor set up the press in a 
vacant Russian hut, and in due time appeared a full-fledged newspaper—The Alaskan. 

Most new enterprises boast of a specialty, and that of the Alaskan was of being the most 
westerly, most northerly and most remote publication on the American continent. Three of 
its four pages were filled with solid matter, descriptive of Alaska, its climate, resources and 
needs in the way of congressional legislation, written by the master hand of the Governor. 
The remaining columns were diversely illumined with local paragraphs contributed by 
a minor official, whose service in that direction was demanded by the managing editor, 
notwithstanding his genius had never been thus directed—"which will make the newspaper 
interesting,” said the Governor. 2 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

Governor Alfred Swineford created quite a stir when he issued his 1887 annual report 
condemning the character of the Alaska Commercial Company (ACC) and its treatment 
of Alaska Natives in general. Swineford made his allegations against the ACC without 
ever having visited the Pribilof Islands. He was subsequently compelled by federal offi¬ 
cials to tour areas of Alaska and to visit the Seal Islands to examine conditions first hand. 


567 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


The government’s agent, George Tingle, wrote in his 1888 annual report of July 31, 1888, 
of Swineford’s visit to St. Paul Island: 

On the 17th of June, at noon, the United States man-of-war Thetis, Lieutenant-Commander 
Emory, arrived at this island and anchored, having on board his Excellency, A.P. Swineford, 
governor of Alaska. 

Commander Emory, with a number of his officers and the governor, came on shore, and 
were met at the landing by the Treasury officials and Alaska Commercial Company’s agent, 

Dr. H.H. McIntyre, by whom a cordial welcome was extended the distinguished visitors. 

Every facility was offered the governor to further the object of his visit. He was placed in 
possession of the fullest information from the books, and by personal observation as well 
as inquiry among the natives, as to the management of the fur-seal islands. The entire 
ship’s party was taken to the rookeries by the Treasury agent, as well as upon the seal fields, 
through the salt houses and store, schoolhouse and church, where the governor looked 
into everything critically. He took occasion to express himself as highly pleased with 
the condition of the natives and the management of the Government’s interests and the 
relation of the lessees therewith. 

He was, indeed, quite profuse in his praise of the company’s care and provision for the 
natives, as well as the correct methods of conducting the Government business. He 
thought it could not be improved upon. 

The governor’s visit can have but one result, as he is a fair man, viz, to give him the data 
gained by personal knowledge on which he will base a report correcting many of the errors 
into which he was led in his last report, by accepting as true the false statements of a man 
named Anderson. 73 

The governor reiterated his condemnation of the ACC following his tour of most of 
the company’s stations in the Territory during the summer of 1888. However, he modified 
his previous assumptions concerning living conditions on the Seal Islands. 74 

So far as its [ACC] operations on the seal islands are concerned, it affords me pleasure 
to be able to report an altogether satisfactory condition of affairs; one which is wholly 
creditable at least to the company. I am perfectly satisfied that the company is, and has 
been all along, faithfully complying with all the terms and conditions of its agreement with 
the Government; in fact, it is doing even more in the matter of providing for the wants and 
comfort of the natives than its contract requires. 

I found the natives all comfortably housed in neat frame houses, built for them by the 
company, and which they are permitted to occupy for no other consideration than that the 
premises shall be kept clean. There are about sixty of these natives’ houses in the village of 
St. Paul, all presenting a neat, tidy exterior, and, so far as my observation extended, all well 
and cleanly kept on the inside. No offal or offensive refuse of any kind is allowed around 
the house; the streets are kept clean, and the sanitary regulations and conditions are better 
than those usually enforced in eastern villages. 75 

The governor did not claim to have found Utopia on the Seal Islands, however. 

the Government requires the company to furnish the inhabitants ... with 60 cords of fire¬ 
wood annually, but for some reason or under some agreement coal is being furnished them 
instead of wood, the allowance being 10 pounds a day to each house.... This amount of 
coal is, of course, insufficient, and the people are compelled to buy enough fuel to make up 
the deficiency.... 

In the event of a renewal of the company’s lease or the leasing of the islands to any other 
corporation or individual, I think a much more liberal provision for a free supply of fuel to 
the natives should be made. 76 


568 




Biographies S ♦ Swineford 


The British government used comments by Governor Swineford and others to sus¬ 
tain its position that the United States government lacked proper institutional control 
over the sealing industry. They cited excerpts from Swineford’s two reports (1887 and 
1888) to support its position before the Paris Tribunal of Arbitration in 1893 that the 
leasing system was detrimental to the Seal Islands’ Natives and to the fur-seal herd via the 
practice ol land killing. The British disregarded the fact that Swineford had never actu¬ 
ally visited the Pribilofs when he issued his 1887 report, and they ignored the governor’s 
retractions in the 1888 report. Britain’s solicitors put forward in support of their case the 
governor’s authority as defined in the May 17, 1884, An Act to create a Civil Government 
for Alaska, Section 5: 

The Governor appointed under the provisions of this Act shall from time to time inquire 
into the operations of the Alaska Seal and Fur Company [Alaska Commercial Company], 
and shall annually report to Congress the result of said inquiries, and any and all violations 
by said Company of the Agreement existing between the United States and said Company. 78 

In developing their case, the British also persisted with their attack against the cred¬ 
ibility of the ACC and the government’s lack of control over it. 

Official Reports of the United States, including Reports of the Governor of Alaska, with 
other evidence, show that the lessee Company practically exercised independent control 
over the whole western part of the Territory of Alaska. 79 

In an apparent attempt to underplay some of Governor Swineford’s more positive 
statements in 1888 regarding the ACC, the British included a statement directed at the 
logistical challenges facing the governor. They alleged that under such conditions he 
could not properly attend to his charge. 

Though Governor Swineford succeeded in visiting the Pribyloff Islands in 1888, the 
circumstances are practically such that it is ordinarily impossible for the Governor of 
Alaska to carry out the above provision. The capital of the territory, Sitka, is situated at a 
distance of about 1,200 miles from Unalaska, the nearest place of any importance to the 
Pribyloff Islands, which lie at a further distance of about 200 miles. There has been no 
regular means of communication between Sitka and Unalaska till 1891, when a monthly 
mail was for the first time established for a part of the year. Thus, unless by means of some 
chance vessel, it has been necessary to send any communications passing from Sitka to 
Unalaska, or vice versa, by way of San Francisco, involving a sea transit of some 3,500 miles, 
while from San Francisco to Unalaska there has again never been any regular mail service. 

It has thus very naturally happened that the whole of the western part of Alaska has been 
practically beyond the control of the Governor, and that the powerful Company leasing the 
Pribyloff Islands has exercised there an almost independent sway. 80 

After demonstrating the logistical impracticalities faced by the governor, the British 
case continued: 

In his official Report for 1887, A.P. Swineford, Governor of Alaska, writes as follows of the 
operations and power of the Alaska Commercial Company, which he professes himself 
unable to control: 

[Quote within a quote] While all this and much more is true concerning its treatment of the 
native people, instances are not lacking where it has boycotted and driven away from the 
islands Government officials who, intent upon the honest, faithful discharge of their duties, 
have incurred the displeasure [of] or refused to do the bidding of its Agents [e.g. see Gavitt 
biography]. In fact it possesses the power to compel compliance with its every exaction, and 


569 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


wherever it has obtained a foothold neither white man nor native can do more than eke out 
a miserable existence, save by its sufferance . 81 

The British reported that Swineford persisted in his position against any monopoly 
over the resources in the Territory. “I can see no good reason why the present monop¬ 
oly of the [fur-seal] business may not be abolished,” 82 the governor said—but he did not 
recant his findings that the Seal Islands’ Natives were being properly treated overall. 

Nearly a century later, in 1980, another author would use Governor Swineford’s 1887 
comments about the ACC to support an argument that the ACC, and by association the 
federal government, had mistreated the Native population of the Seal Islands. 85 And just 
as the British argument failed to recognize Swineford’s later retractions, so did the 1980 
argument. 84 


1 Judith Graham, Current Biography Yearbook 1994 (NY: H. W. Wilson, 1994), 524; and Jane Estes, 
“Victor Scheffer,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 1, 1979, 6. 

2 Graham, Current Biography Yearbook, 527. 

3 Ibid., 525. 

4 Ibid., 523. 

5 Ibid., 523-6. 

6 Dr. Victor B. Scheffer, oral history interview, Pribilof Project Office, NOAA/NOS/ORR, Seattle, WA, 
May 16, 2002, on super 16mm film, transferred to NARA, College Park, Jan. 2009. 

7 Victor B. Scheffer, Victor Scheffer at the Pribilof Islands Research 1940, Fur-Seal Archives, NMML 
Library, Seattle, WA, 3.A. 

8 Victor B. Scheffer, “The Rise and Fall of a Reindeer Herd,” Scientific Monthly, Dec. 1951. 

9 Estes, “Victor Scheffer,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 6; and Dr. Victor B. Scheffer oral history interview, 
May 16, 2002. 

10 Victor B. Scheffer, 1940 Pribilof Islands Research Notes; and Dr. Victor B. Scheffer, oral history inter¬ 
view, May 16, 2002. 

11 Graham, Current Biography Yearbook 1994, 525. 

12 “Historical Sketch,” Benjamin Franklin Scribner Papers, 1846-1900, Coll. SC 1322, http://www. 
indianahistory.org/library/manuscripts/collection_guides/scl322.html (accessed Feb. 18, 2009). 
Source of materials in “Historical Sketch” derived from materials in collection Representative Men 
of Indiana, vol. 1 (Cincinnati, OH: Western Biographical Publishing Co., 1880); and Indiana’s Roll of 
Honor, vol. 2. 

13 “Historical Sketch,” Benjamin Franklin Scribner Papers, 1846-1900, Coll. SC 1322, http://www. 
indianahistory.org/library/manuscripts/collection_guides/scl322.html (accessed Feb. 18, 2009); U.S. 
Census, 1880; Bruce Pusch, Ancestry.com; and http://civilwarindiana.com/biographies (accessed 
Sept. 28, 2004). 

14 “Historical Sketch,” Benjamin Franklin Scribner Papers. 

15 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, convened at Paris 
under the Treaty between the United States of America and Great Britain, concluded at Washington 
February 29, 1892, for the determination of questions between the two governments concerning the 
jurisdictional rights of the United States in the waters of Bering Sea, vol. 3 (Washington, DC: GPO, 
1895), 89. 

16 Webster’s Biographical Dictionary: A Dictionary of Names of Noteworthy Persons with 
Pronunciations and Concise Biographies (Springfield, MA: G. and C. Merriam, 1943), 1346; and 
Sharon Workman, “Workman Sutherland Family,” Ancestry.com. 

17 Webster’s Biographical Dictionary, 1346. 

18 Barbara Sweetland Smith, The Church of the Holy Apostles Saints Peter and Paul on Saint Paul 
Island, Pribilof Islands: A History 1821-2001 (Anchorage: Aleutian/Pribilof Islands Restitution 
Trust, 2007), 28, spells Kass’ian with a double “s,” while Richard A. Pierce, Russian America: A 


570 





Biographies S ♦ Swineford - Notes 


Biographical Dictionary (Kingston, ON: Limestone Press, 1990), 451, uses only one “s.” 

19 Pierce, Russian America, 452. 

20 Ibid., 451-2. Note: The date 1840 for the birth of daughter Mariia to Kass’ian and Iustiniia was likely 
a typographic error; these authors assumed 1850. 

21 The dates when Kass ian served as manager at St. Paul Island are approximate and based upon the 
writings of Pierce, Russian America, 451-2, and Henry W. Elliott, Report on the Condition of the 
Fur-Seal Fisheries of Alaska, Together with All Maps and Illustrations Accompanying Said Report, in 
U.S. Congress, House, 54th Cong., 1st sess., H. Doc. no. 175 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1896), 133. 

22 Elliott, Report ofITenry W. Elliott, 133. 

23 Pierce, Russian America, 451. 

24 "Leonard Griffin Shepard,” http://www.familysearch.org. 

25 Leonard G. Shepard, United States Coast Guard,” http://www.uscg.mil/history/people/ 
LGShepardBio.asp (accessed Apr. 8, 2009). 

26 Ibid. 

27 The Jefferson County Historical Society of Port Townsend, Washington, maintains a collection of 
materials concerning the U.S. Steamer Rush (Bert Kellogg, no. 1697, box B, folder 2; Rush descrip¬ 
tion card, photograph collection). The collection’s description card reads as follows: “USRC Rush 
Operated from San Francisco to Seattle to Alaska. Rush, Revenue Cutter, 1874-1913. Third ship 
to bear than [sic] name, one of the earliest cutters to sail Alaska in that service. Bit. E. Boston by 
Atlantic Works [and] placed in Commission, 1874, sailed to S. F. [San Francisco] 1874-75. First trip 
to Alaska 1877, assigned to annual seal patrol in Pribiloffs. [In] 1885, the old hull sold and a new 
hull with boiler and engine of old Rush [was] repaired and installed. [In] 1898, [it was] order [sic] to 
co-operate with U.S., in the [Spanish American] War then retd, to Treasury Dept, in August of that 
same year. Rush contd. in Alaska to 9/30/1912, when placed out of commission at Port Townsend. 
Following year sold to the Alaskan Junk Co., for $8500.” 

28 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 187-8. 

29 Mae Felts Herringshaw, Flerringshaw’s City Blue Book of Biography, Chicagoans of 1916, Ten 
Thousand Biographies (Chicago: Clark J. Herringshaw, 1916), 359; and http://www.brocku.ca/ 
MeadProject/WhoWasWho/WhoWasWhoSims.html (accessed Apr. 15, 2009). 

30 Ibid., 359-60. 

31 Gerald O. Williams, The Bering Sea Fur Seal Dispute, 1895-1911 (Eugene, OR: Alaska Maritime 
Publications, 1984), 62, states that one of “the Aleut watchmen” was hit by the Japanese return fire; 
this is apparently erroneous, if we are correct in our assumption that the source Williams cited 
(Edwin W. Sims, Report on the Fur Seal Fisheries in Alaska (Dept, of Commerce: GPO, 1906), is 
actually Edwin W. Sims, Report on the Alaskan Fur-Seal Fisheries (Washington, DC: GPO, 1906), 
which made no such claim. Sims recounted several raids on the island during July 1906. In his de¬ 
scription of a raid on July 17, he states “the native guard was directed to fire. This fire was returned 
from the deck of the schooner, but no one of the island guard was injured” (op. cit. p. 17). Also note 
that in 1906, the Department of Commerce and Labor was in effect, and not the Department of 
Commerce as Williams references. 

32 Agent Lembkey stated in his report that 12 Japanese prisoners were taken; U.S. Cong., Senate, 
"Letter from the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, Transmitting, Pursuant to Senate Resolution, of 
Mar. 2, 1908, Certain Reports Relating to The Alaskan Seal Fisheries,” 60th Cong., 1st sess., S. Doc. 
no. 376, Mar. 11, 1908, in U.S. Bur. of Fish., Alaska Seal Fisheries, Compilation of Documents and 
Other Matters Relating Thereto, vol. 15 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1913), 29. 

33 Ibid. 

34 Edwin W. Sims, Report on the Alaskan Fur-Seal Fisheries, 13-9; and Robert Dunn, “Alaska, the Seal- 
Warder [sic], and the Japanese Raider,” Flarper’s Weekly 50 (1906), 1310. Dunn apparently misinter¬ 
preted that the Boso Maru was one of the marauding vessels landing parties onto St. Paul Island, as 
according to witness Sims the schooner Boso Maru was only mentioned by the captured Japanese as 
having entered the Bering Sea ( Report on the Alaskan Fur-Seal Fisheries, 15). 

35 U.S. Senate, Letter from the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, 29. 

36 An insert in the author’s copy of Sims, Report on the Alaskan Fur-Seal Fisheries. 

37 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 90-91. 

38 Philip W Alexander, History of San Mateo County: From the Earliest Times, with a Description of its 
Resources and Advantages, and the Biographies of its Representative Men (Burlingame, CA: Press of 


571 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


Burlingame, 1916); U.S. Censuses, 1880 and 1930; and “Doctor Murder, Patient Suicide Puzzle the 
Police, Leading County Doctor Slain in Own Office,” San Mateo Times (San Mateo, CA), Feb. 21, 
1938, 1-2. 

39 "John Anthony Smith,” Ancestry.com; Social Security Death Index (accessed June 18, 2008); and 
“Obituary: J. Anthony Tony Smith,” The Steamboat Pilot & Today, Dec. 17, 2006, http://m.steam- 
boatpilot.com/obits/2006/dec/17/j_anthony_smith/ (accessed Apr. 10, 2009). 

40 “Obituary,” The Steamboat Pilot & Today. 

41 Ibid. 

42 Will Speers was born on 1879, according to the U.S. Census, 1880, and SSDI. However, other sources 
cite his birth year as 1877: U.S. Passports, Passport Applications Jan. 2, 1906-Mar. 31, 1925, NARA 
M1490, certificate 70418, issued Apr. 15, 1912; certificate 34827, issued June 17, 1914; and certificate 
441552, issued June 13, 1924; SSDI, Master File, http://searchancestry.com (accessed Jan. 3, 2009); 
California Death Index, 1940-97; National Cemetery Administration, U.S. Veterans Gravesites, 
1775-2006, Ancestry.com (accessed Jan. 3, 2009); U.S. Census, 1880, Vinton, Benton Co., Iowa, 
NARA, microfilm roll T9-327, p. 335; Obituary “Frederick W. Speers,” Chicago Tribune, July 31, 

1971; “America’s Obituaries & Death Notices,” http://infoweb.newsbank.com (accessed Jan. 3, 2009); 
“Iowa 1876 Marriages” transcribed by William Gertz from LDS film 1320513, Scott County, IA, 
http://www.celticcousins.net/scot/1876marriagesjanjun.html (accessed Jan. 3, 2009); U.S. Census, 
1900 , Davenport, Scott Co., IA, NARA, microfilm roll T623-458, page 20A; Harry E. Downer, “Otto 
Klug Biography,” History of Davenport and Scott County, vol. 2 (Chicago: S. J. Clarke, 1910), http:// 
www.celticcousins.net/scott/1910vol2biosl9.htm (accessed Jan. 3, 2009); and Rollo Clayton Speer, 
Genealogy of the Speers-Spears-Speer Family (Pocatello, ID: pub. unknown, 1938), 12 and 24. 

43 According to the Official Log of St. Paul Island maintained at Funter Bay, Dr. William F. Speers ar¬ 
rived aboard the USFWS Bluewing on Dec. 29, 1943. Dr. Speers departed St. Paul Island for Seattle 
aboard the USFWS Penguin on Mar. 8, 1945. 

44 Undated letter from Dr. Will Speers to Mrs. Ruth Binner, San Diego, CA, courtesy of the Alaska 
Historical Society (AHS). The letter was part of a small collection of letters dated from Dec. 12, 

1943, to Apr. 1, 1944, donated to the AHS in May 2008 by Dale Thomas and Gordon S. McWilliams, 
San Pedro, CA. 

45 The National Cyclopcedia of American Biography (NY: James T. White, 1947), vol. 33, 380. 

46 Joseph Stanley-Brown, “My Friend Garfield,” American Heritage Magazine, Aug. 1971, 50. 

47 “J. Stanley-Brown, Aide to Garfield,” New York Times, Nov. 3, 1941, 19; Women Scientists/Medicine, 
Special Collections, Vassar College Library, Poughkeepsie, NY; “Dr. Stanley-Brown, Bride at Her 
Home,” New York Times, May 6, 1950, 13; “Garfield Monument,” http://www. deadohio.com (ac¬ 
cessed May 27, 2004); and Linda Carpenter Fry, Ancestry.com. 

48 The National Cyclopcedia of American Biography, vol. 33, 380. 

49 Stanley-Brown, “My Friend Garfield,” 50; and The National Cyclopcedia of American Biography, 

1947. 

50 The National Cyclopcedia of American Biography, vol. 33, 380. The article cited Stanley-Brown’s 
departure date as “Mar. 1892, for France” on p. 380—the year should have read 1893; cf. “Passengers 
Bound for Europe,” New York Times, Mar. 5, 1893, 11, which stated “Bering Sea Arbitration 
Commission delegation on board included: Edward J. Phelps, James C. Carter, counsel for the 
United States; Major E. W. Halford, military attache; Robert Lansing, assistant counsel; J. W. Hulse, 

E. H. McDermott, attaches; Joseph Stanley Brown, and John T. Coughlin attached to the agency.” 

51 “The Double Pay Scandal,” New York Times, Apr. 1, 1893, 1. 

52 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 10-11. 

53 Ibid., 20. Reproductions of Stanley-Brown’s Pribilof Island seal-rookery maps numbered 2-12 
appear at the end of vol. 3, app. 2. 

54 Betty A. Lindsay and John A. Lindsay, Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Genealogy and Census, NOAA Tech. 
Memo. NOS ORR 18 (2009), 54, 320, and 432. 

55 Federal retirement application for “Gabriel Stepetin Civil Service Retirement under the Fur Seal 
Act of 1966, Public Law 89-702,” United States Civil Service Commission, Bureau of Retirement 
and Insurance, Washington, DC, July 14, 1967, including various attachments from Acting Island 
Manager, Roy Hurd, St. Paul Island, Alaska. U.S. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, Saint Paul 
Operations Office, Saint Paul, AI<, Subject and Decimal Correspondence of the Pribilof Islands 
Program, 1923-1969, NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, RG 22, box 52, folder 5B, folder Gl. 


572 




Biographies S ♦ Notes 


. (See http://www.archives.gov/research/arc, ARC ID 2842763.) 

56 Biographical sketch provided by Larry Merculieff via email to John Lindsay, Jan. 13, 2007. 

57 Lindsay and Lindsay, Genealogy and Census, 58. 

58 Ibid., 58 and 385. 

59 Social Security Admin., SSDI, Master File, http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/ssee.dll.db+ssdi (ac¬ 
cessed June 10, 2009). 

60 Biographical information provided by Larry Merculieff via email to John Lindsay, Jan. 13, 2007. 

61 “Charles Sumner, 1811-1874,” Library of Congress, Biographical Directory of the United States 
Congress, 1774-Present, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=S001068 (ac¬ 
cessed Feb. 18, 2003); and Webster's Biographical Dictionary, 1431. 

62 Ibid. 

63 Harold F. Taggart, “Sealing on St. George Island, 1868,” The Pacific Historical Review 28, no. 4 (1959), 
351 commented on the duration of Sumner’s speech; cf. David Hunter Miller, The Alaska Treaty 
(Kingston, ON: Limestone Press, 1981), 112. 

64 Charles Sumner, “Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts on the cession of Russian 
America to the United States,” Washington, DC: Congressional Globe Office; James Alton 
James, The First Scientific Exploration of Russian America and the Purchase of Alaska (Chicago: 
Northwestern Univ. Press, 1942); Archie W. Shiels, The Purchase of Alaska (College, AI<: Univ. of 
Alaska Press, 1967), 102, 107-8, 119; Miller, The Alaska Treaty, 113; and Taggart, “Sealing on St. 
George Island, 1868,” 351. 

65 Sumner, “Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner,” 3. 

66 Shiels, The Purchase of Alaska, 102. 

67 Miller, The Alaska Treaty, 112. 

68 U.S. Congress, Senate, Congressional Record (Washington, DC: GPO, 1910), Jan. 13, 579. 

69 Michigan State Society, Daughters of the American Revolution, Michigan Pioneer Experiences 
1710-1880 with Genealogical Data and Anecdotes (Marquette, MI: Marquette Chapter Daughters 
of the American Revolution, 1933), member no. 28151, Nelly Flower (Swineford) Stafford, 700-701; 
and Morgan Hewitt Stafford, A Genealogy of The Kidder Family (Rutland, VT: Tuttle, 1941), 274-5. 

70 Ibid. 

71 S. D. Bingham, Early History of Michigan with Biographies of State Officers, Members of Congress, 
Judges and Legislators, Published Pursuant to Act 59, 1887 (Lansing, MI: Thorp and Godfrey, 1888), 
627. 

72 Barton Atkins, Modern Antiquities: Comprising Sketches of Early Buffalo and the Great Lakes, Also 
Sketches of Alaska (Buffalo, New York: Courier, 1898), 160-1. 

73 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries and General Resources of 
Alaska (Washington, DC: GPO, 1898), vol. 1, 208-9. The authors researched “Anderson” and failed 
to identify the individual. 

74 Letter from the Secretary of the Interior Transmitting from the Governor of Alaska a Report of 
the Alaska Seal and Fur Company [Dec. 10, 1888]. U.S. Congress, Senate, 1898, 50th Cong., 2nd 
sess., Ex. Doc. no. 74 in U.S. Dept, of Commerce and Labor, Alaska Seal Fisheries, Compilation of 
Documents and Other Related Matters, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1906). 

75 U.S. Congress, House, “Report from the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries of the House 
of Representatives,” in The Fur-Seal and Other Fisheries of Alaska: Investigation of the Fur-Seal and 
Other Fisheries of Alaska. 50th Cong., 2nd sess., H. Rep. no. 3883 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1889), 10. 

76 Ibid., 11. 

77 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 8, 231. 

78 Ibid., 238. 

79 Ibid., 233. 

80 Ibid., 240. 

81 Ibid., 238; and U.S. Congress, House, “Report from the Committee on Merchant Marine and 
Fisheries,” H. Rep. no. 3883, 365. 

82 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 8, 239; and U.S. Congress, House, “Report from the 
Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries” H. Rep. no. 3883, 365. 

83 Dorothy Knee Jones, A Century of Servitude: Pribilof Aleuts under U.S. Rule (Washington, DC: Univ. 
Press of America, 1980), 36. 

84 Ibid., 36. 


573 





Catherine Nedarazoff, St. Paul Island. (Washington State Historical Society. Photo: Dr. 
Charles A. Lutz. Henry Wood Elliot Coll., 087.3f.doc/3.OLE.) 


574 




T 


Tanner, Zera Luther ( 1835 - 1906 ) 

Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Navy 

Cotnmander, U.S. Fish Commission steamer Albatross 

Genealogy 

Zera Luther Tanner, born of Zera and Ruth E. 
(Foster) Tanner, December 5, 1835, at Warsaw, 

New York, married Helen Benedict, daughter 
of Charles B. and Sophronia Betsey (Matteson) 
Benedict, November 11, 1884, at Attica, New 
York. Zera L. Tanner died in Washington, D.C., 
on December 16, 1906. 1 

Biographical Sketch 



[Zera Tanner] went, in 1855, to England with an 
invention he had patented, when he entered the 
seafaring business in October of that year. Under 
the British government he made voyages to Russia, 

China and the South Sea Islands. Returning to 
America, beginning in 1874, Capt. Tanner entered 
the service of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company 
for four years. Next, the Captain was employed 
in superintending the construction of the U.S. 
steamer, Speedwell going on special services in 

deep-sea explorations under the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries. 


Zera L. Tanner. (Andrew W. Young, 
History of the Town of Warsaw, New York, 
1869, 338.) 


A second ship, the Fish Hawk was built under his guidance for the same commission. Still 
later he aided in planning the Albatross which he commanded, beginning in November 
1882 for five years in scientific exploration of the waters of the Atlantic coast of the United 
States, British North America, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea. In May 1888, 
starting from Washington, Mr. Tanner, after sailing via the Strait of Magellan, again set 


575 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


up headquarters in San Francisco. He explored the great fishing banks of Alaska and the 
Bering Sea, co-operating with the government for the preservation of the seal. A survey for 
a cable between California and Hawaii was also part of his work. 

In 1895, he returned for special duty under the United States Fish Commission in 
Washington, D.C., except during the Spanish-American War when he was assigned for 
duty in the Navy Department at Washington, San Francisco and Honolulu. 2 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Lt. Commander Zera Tanner’s Bering Sea experience provided him with opportunity to 
observe and comment on the impact of pelagic sealing. His deposition was given at Port 
Townsend, Washington, before Notary Public James G. Swan on May 9, 1892: 

1 am lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy. I have made five cruises in Alaskan waters in 
command of the Fish Commission steamer Albatross, now temporarily in the service of the 
United States Revenue Marine ... July 4, 1888 ... May 1889 ... May 1890 ... July 1891 ... 

March 1892.... I have been engaged in this work nearly fourteen years, during which time 
it has been a part of my duty to acquire information concerning the seal and its life. This 
has been done not only from personal experience and observations, but by questioning 
practical men, such as intelligent mariners, fishermen, and hunters. Pelagic sealing has 
been a frequent subject of conversation and argument with me since my first northern 
cruise in 1888, and I have reached the following conclusions: 

First . Pelagic sealing is wasteful, as a large percentage of seals killed are lost. Opinions on 
that point, varying from 30 to 70 percent. 

Second . The sexes can not be distinguished in the water, except old males, and both sexes 
and all sizes are killed indiscriminately. 

Third . Of the seals killed, from 60 to 70 percent are females, which during their northerly 
migration are heavy with young, slow of movement, and require an extra amount of rest 
and sleep, thus largely increasing their liability to successful attack. 

Fourth . The female killed, the death of the unborn pup follows, entailing a double loss. 

Fifth . Seals killed in Bering Sea after the birth of the pups are largely mother seals and the 
farther they are found from the islands the greater the percentage will be. The reason for 
this seeming paradox is very simple. The young males, having no family responsibilities 
can afford to hunt nearer home, where food can be found if sufficient time is devoted to 
the search. The mother does not leave her young except when necessity compels her to 
seek food for its sustenance. She can not afford to waste time on feeding grounds already 
occupied by younger and more active feeders; hence she makes the best of her way to 
richer fields, farther away, gorges herself with food, then seeks rest and a quiet nap on the 
surface. Under these conditions she sleeps soundly, and becomes an easy victim to the 
watchful hunter. 

Sixth . A double waste occurs when the mother seal is killed, as the pup will surely starve 
to death. A mother seal will give sustenance to no pup but her own. I saw sad evidences of 
this waste on St. Paul Island last season, where large numbers of pups were lying about the 
rookeries, where they had died of starvation. 

Seventh . The number of seals on the Pribilof Islands is decreasing. I saw positive proof of 
this on St. Paul Island last season. 

Eighth . Pups can not swim at birth, hence the female cannot give birth to her young in 
the water without sacrificing its life. I have seen thousands of pups learning to swim at the 
rookeries on St. Paul, and their early efforts were quite as awkward as those of a boy when 
taking his first dip. Their trouble seems to be to keep their heads above water. 


576 













Biographies T ♦ Tanner - Taylor 



Report U. S. F. C. —Tanuti'. Albatross. 


The cabin. 


PLATE III. 


Henry W. Elliott’s sketch of Tanner in his cabin on the USFC Albatross, 1883 (1883 U.S. Fish 
Commission Report, p. Ill, plate III.) 


Ninth . The present practice in pelagic sealing is to shoot them from a boat with a shotgun 
and secure them with a short-handled gaff. If killed instantly, they are apt to sink, unless 
picked up immediately. If wounded, they may be gaffed in their “flurry.” 

Tenth . Pelagic sealing should be suppressed as far as practicable. A protected zone around 
the islands, extending 100 miles from them would not be effective, even if the limits were 
respected. 

Eleventh . The preservation of the rookeries, requires the suppression of pelagic sealing, at 
least in Bering Sea, and in the immediate vicinity of the passes. 3 


Taylor, William B. (b. 1850 ) 

Assistant Treasury Agent, St. Paul and St. George Islands, 1881 
Genealogy 

William B. Taylor was born in October 1850 in Illinois. He married in Illinois to a woman 
named Martha, who came from New York. At the time of the 1900 U.S. Census, the 
couple was living in Omaha, Nebraska, with a daughter named Hester. 4 


577 
















































































































































































































Pribilof Islands: The People 


Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

William B. Taylor deposed before Notary Public Sevellon A. Brown for the Tribunal of 
Arbitration on April 26, 1892, at Washington, D.C. The following is an excerpt of his de¬ 
position. 

I am 41 years of age, Secretary and Treasurer of the Globe Loan and Trust Company, 
of Omaha, Nebraska, and am not and never have been in any way connected with any 
company engaged in the seal skin industry. In the year 1881 I was Assistant Treasury Agent 
for the Seal Islands. I arrived on the islands in the latter part of May of that year, and after 
a week’s stay on St. Paul Island, was detailed to St. George, remaining there until the latter 
part of August. Since then I have not been on the islands. 5 

According to Special Agent Harrison Otis in his 1881 annual report, Taylor departed 
the island of St. George without authorization. 6 


Temple, George H. ( 1858 - 1921 ) 

Assistant Agent, Alaska Commercial Company, St. Paul Island, 1880-1882 
Genealogy 

George Howard Temple was born on December 11, 1858, in Randolph, Orange County, 
Vermont, to George Temple and Elizabeth C. (McIntyre) Temple, sister to Hugh H. 
McIntyre (see Hugh H. McIntyre biography). George Howard Temple married Flora 
May Hewitt on November 24, 1887, in Randolph, Vermont. The couple had one son, Ray 
Hewitt, born January 12, 1892. 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

George Howard Temple offered an agrarian view of the land harvest of seals on the Pribilof 
Islands. Temple deposed before Notary Public J. B. Eldredge in Randolph, Vermont, for 
the Tribunal of Arbitration on June 13, 1892. The following is an excerpt of his deposition. 

I am 32 years old; a native of Vermont, where I now reside. I was bred to the occupation of 
farming, and am at present a hardware merchant in my native town of Randolph. 

From 1880-1882,1 was employed by the Alaska Commercial Company at St. Paul Island, 

Alaska, as assistant agent. 

A farmer on going to the seal islands at once notices, as I did, that the term “seal hunting,” 
so called, conveys no idea of the business of taking seals for their skins as it is there carried 
on. It is in no sense “hunting,” the work of bringing in for slaughter from their accustomed 
haunts and slaying such number of killable seals from day to day ... being in no way 
different from that pursued by the farmer in driving up his farm herd and selecting and 
killing such as he sees fit; the only difference ... in the case of the seals, the pasture in 
which they feed is the broad ocean. 8 


578 







_ Biographies T ♦ Taylor - Tetoff 

Tetoff, Neon ( 1861 - 1932 ) 

Woodworker, Engineer, and Boat Keeper, St. Paul Island, 1910s 
Genealogy 

Neon Tetoff was born September 14, 1861, on St. Paul Island, Alaska. Neon married 
Agrippina (aka Agrafina, surname unknown, b. June 23, 1875, Unalaska). Neon and 
Agrippina had three sons: Simeon (b. 1893); 9 Dmetri Tetoff (b. November 6, 1897); 10 and 
John Tetoff (b. May 21, 1904, and adopted by Simeon and Advotia Nozekoff); 11 and eight 
daughters born on St. Paul Island: Erena (b. March 29, 1900); Anna (b. December 6, 1906; 
another daughter named Anna (b. February 15, 1925); Sosepatra (b. November 22, 1911; 
Agnia (b. January 31, 1914); Ekaterma (b. December 5, 1916); and Xenia (b. February 
13, 1919). 12 The eighth daughter, Agrifina (b. June 14, 1902), was adopted by Neon 
and Agrippina. 15 Erena Tetoff married George Lekanof of St. George Island, Alaska on 
November 25, 1925. Dmitri Tetoff married Sophia Cherepanoff of Akutan (b. September 
30, 1900) 14 at Unalaska on October 20, 1917. 15 Dmitri and Sophia Tetoff had a daughter 
Virginia born on November 7, 1921, St. Paul Island. 16 Neon Tetoff died August 17, 1932, 
on St. Paul Island. 17 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Neon Tetoff, a skilled woodworker, served as boat keeper and engineer for the gasoline 
launch on St. Paul Island. He went on a deadly sailing trip with Dr. Walter Hahn, Dr. 
Harry Chichester, and their wives on May 31, 1911 (see Hahn and Chichester biogra¬ 
phies). A sudden wind capsized the sailboat in the Salt Lagoon, casting all on board into 
the frigid water. Everyone made it ashore, thanks in part to the heroic efforts of Neon 
Tetoff, but Hahn and Chichester died from exposure. 

Tetoff’s work at the gasoline launch often required him to tow Aleut fishers to shore if 
the waters became too rough for them to row their small skin boats in the cross-currents. 
Philip Hatton, an agent on St. Paul Island, captured one such incident in the agent’s log¬ 
book in August 1913: 

At 4 P.M. I went out with Neon Tetof [sic] and several natives to tow in the fishing boats 
with the gasoline launch. We towed three boats in from off the east side, and several 
[others] which were off the east side rowed in at about 6 o’clock. Eight or nine halibut and 
several cod was the day’s catch. 

At 9 P.M. a native came into the office and reported that one of the fishing boats had not 
returned. I immediately had the gang turn out, sent two men along the reef with lanterns, 
left instructions to start a bon fire on the hill at the flag-staff if the boat came in, and made 
preparations to go out in the launch to search for the boat. During the usual delay in 
getting the launch ready the missing boat was sighted coming around the point near the 
village landing. 

The four men, in the boat, stated that as the day was very good they had fished longer than 
usual and had drifted down near Otter island [sic]. When they started to row home at 6 
o’clock the tide was against them and they could not get in before 9:30. ls 


579 






Pribilof Islands: The People 


Tevis, Lloyd ( 1824 - 1899 ) 

Director, North American Commercial Company, 1890-1899 
Lawyer, Capitalist 



Lloyd Tevis. (Courtesy Cypress Memorial 
Park, Colma, San Mateo County, 
California.) 


Genealogy 

Lloyd Tevis was born March 20, 1824, in 
Shelbyville, Kentucky, the son of lawyer Samuel 
Tevis and Sarah (Greathouse) Tevis. On April 20, 
1854, Lloyd married Susan G. Sanders, daugh¬ 
ter of Colonel Lewis Sanders of Sacramento, 
California. Their children were Louise, Harry, 
and William Tevis. 19 

Biographical Sketch 

Lloyd Tevis was known as a financial genius and 
referred to as a “capitalist” 20 because of his lucra¬ 
tive business endeavors in banking, railroads, 
mining, cattle, and the fur trade. He became the 
first president of Wells Fargo in 1869. He owned 
streetcar lines in San Francisco as well as gold and 
silver mines in five western states. He also owned 
the Anaconda copper properties in Montana and 
the second largest herds of cattle and sheep in 
California. When his life ended on July 24, 1899, 
his estate was worth over $15,000,000. 21 


Pribilof Island Experience 

Lloyd Tevis served as the vice-president and a director of the North American Commercial 
Company 22 from circa 1890 to 1899. 


Thompson, D’Arcy ( 1860 - 1948 ) 

Scientific Advisor, British Delegation, Bering Sea Fur-Seal Commission, 1896-1897 
Professor of Biology, University College, Dundee, Scotland, 1884-1917 
Professor of Natural History, University of St. Andrews, Scotland, 1917-1948 

Genealogy 

DArcy Wentworth Thompson was born on May 2, 1860, in Edinburgh, Scotland, to 
D’Arcy Thompson, a classical scholar, and Fanny (Gamgee) Thompson. D’Arcy Thompson 
married Maureen Ada Drury on July 4, 1901, at St. Andrews, Scotland. They had three 
daughters: Ruth, who would become his biographer, Molly, and Barbara. Thompson died 
at his home, 44 South Street, St. Andrews, on June 21, 1948. 23 


580 












Biographies T ♦ Tevis - Thompson 


Biographical Sketch 

D’Arcy Thompson’s schooling began at home and 
progressed to Edinburgh Academy, Edinburgh 
University, and Cambridge University, where he 
received a BA in sciences in June 1883 and an MA 
on February 12, 1892. Thompson became pro¬ 
fessor of biology at University College, Dundee, 
Scotland, in 1884, a position he held until 1917. 
Among his many accomplishments, he founded a 
museum in Dundee for specimens collected from 
Arctic waters for use in research and teaching. 

In 1917, Thompson was appointed to the Chair 
of Natural History at St. Andrews University. In 
all, Dr. Thompson held a position at the university 
for sixty-four years. He was known as a scholar 
of Greek, a naturalist, and a mathematician, and 
was considered the first biomathematician. His 
publications totaled some 300 scientific articles 
and books, including his most famous book, On 
Growth and Form (1917), in which he argued that 
All science and learning are one, all animals and 
plants could only be understood in terms of pure 
mathematics.” 24 



D’Arcy Thompson served as a scientific 
advisor on Great Britain’s delegation to 
the Bering Sea Fur-Seal Commission, 
1896-97. Photo taken in 1906. (Univ. of 
St. Andrews Special Coll., Ms48534-2-5.) 


Thompson received many honors during his lifetime, including honorary Doctor of 
Law (LLD) degrees from Aberdeen University (April 1, 1933) and Edinburgh University 
(July 5, 1934), and an honorary Doctor of Science (DS) degree from Trinity College in 
Dublin, Ireland (July 5, 1934). He was knighted on June 11, 1937. 

Thompson was an important figure in European fisheries research, carrying out pioneering 
research in hydrography under the Fisheries Board for Scotland and the International 
Council for the Exploration of the Sea. 25 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

During 1896-1897, Dr. D Arcy Thompson served on the Behring Sea Fur-Seal Commission. 
He traveled to the Pribilof Islands to conduct his investigations, which resulted in a report 
presented to both Houses of Parliament in 1897. Excerpts of his introduction to the report 
are given below. 

Report by Professor D’Arcy Thompson on his Mission to Behring Sea in 1896 

Dated March 4, 1897. 

My Lord, 

AFTER, visiting, according to your Lordship’s instructions, the Pribyloff and Commander 
Islands for the purpose of investigating the condition of the seal rookeries thereon, I have 
the honour to submit the following Report:— 26 


581 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


2. The main object of my mission was the collection of information and statistics with 
regard to the working and effectiveness of the Regulations for the fur-seal fishery 
prescribed by the Award of the Paris Arbitration Tribunal. 

3. It was particularly enjoined on me to investigate the breeding rookeries with a view to 
ascertaining the extent and causes of the alleged mortality of unweaned pups. 

4.1 was further instructed to inspect and estimate the number of seals resorting to the 
islands, and in particular to the Pribyloff Islands, and to compare the phenomena that 
I witnessed with the information and statistics supplied for the season of 1895 by the 
American Agents. (54th Congress, 1st Session, Sen. Doc. 137, Part. I, pp. 372, 373.) 

5. Lastly, I was directed to call upon the authorities in Washington and Ottawa, and to 
obtain there, and collect also from persons connected with the sealing industry in Victoria, 
information bearing on the business of my mission. 

6. Mr. G.E.H. Barrett-Hamilton was associated with me and placed under my orders, with 
instructions to proceed, in the first instance, to Robben Island and the Commander Islands, 
and to investigate those localities in particular. Mr. James Macoun was associated with me 
as an Agent of the Dominion Government, and Mr. A. Halkett was directed at the same 
time by the same Government to proceed to Behring Sea on board a sealing-schooner, and 
to watch during the summer the methods and results of the pelagic industry. 

7.1 left England on the 23rd of May, and arrived in Washington on the morning of the 
30th of May. His Excellency, Sir Julian Pauncefote, presented me to Mr. Olney and to Mr. 

Charles S. Hamlin, Assistant Secretary to the United States’ Treasury. With the latter 
gentleman, who had himself visited the Seal Islands in the summer of 1894,1 had the 
benefit of much conversation, together with the advantage of introductions to the whole 
body of naturalists resident in Washington who had given thought to the matter, or 
participated in the research. Among those who did most to entertain and enlighten me 
were Mr. J. Browne Goode, of the Smithsonian Institute, the news of whose untimely and 
lamentable decease was to reach me ere my return; Commander J.J. Brice, of the Fisheries 
Department; Mr. Ridgway, Assistant in the same Department; Dr. Leonard Stejneger, Mr. 

Frederick True, and Mr. Frederic Lucas, of the National Museum, who had all been, or were 
about to be, employed in this particular inquiry. 27 

D’Arcy continued his travel log when he left Washington with James Macoun, repre¬ 
senting Canada on the commission, and traveled to Ottawa, Ontario, then on to Victoria, 
British Columbia, to board his ship for the Seal Islands: 

9. In Victoria I associated and conversed with a number of the captains of sealing 
schooners, who were then engaged in fitting out their vessels for the summer’s cruise, and 
especially with Captain Sieward, of the “Dora Sieward,” who had offered the hospitality of 
his ship to Mr. A. Halkett for the summer. I became acquainted also with several gentlemen 
connected with the industry, and particularly with Mr. Joseph Boscowitz, a leading trader, 
with large interests in the sealing business. 

Admiral Stephenson, who was at that time leaving the station, and Admiral H. St. John 
Palliser, who was then assuming the command, received me with much kindness and 
undertook to meet my requirements for conveyance in or from Behring Sea on board Her 
Majesty’s ships. 

I had previously received information that the United States’ Government had extended 
to me an invitation to proceed to Behring Sea on board the United States’ ship Albatross, 
and I now learned that an American Commission had been appointed on the 18th June 
(since my departure from Washington) for an identical investigation. This Commission 
was headed by Dr. David Starr Jordan, President of the Leland Stanford University, Mr. 

Joseph Murray, of Fort Collins, Colorado, formerly United States’ Treasury Agent at St. 

Paul Island, was selected as Assistant Commissioner, and the following gentlemen from 
the United States National Museum and the United States Fish Commission were detailed 


582 






Sealing crew clubbing fur seals, Pribilof Islands, circa 1896. (Photo: D’Arcy Thompson. Univ. of 
St. Andrews Special Coll., Ms4281(a)-164.) 



Men skinning fur seals, Pribilof Islands, circa 1896. (Photo: DArcy Thompson. Univ. of St. 
Andrews Special Coll., Ms4281(a)-169.) 


583 









Pribilof Islands: The People 



A group of men on one of the Pribilof Islands, circa 1896. (Photo: D’Arcy Thompson. Univ. 
of St. Andrews Special Coll., Ms4281(a)-147.) 


as associates: Lieutenant Commander Jefferson F. Moser, commanding the United States’ 
Fish Commission steamer “Albatross”; Dr. Leonard Stejneger, Curator of Reptiles, United 
States’ National Museum; Mr. Frederic A. Lucas, Curator of Comparative Anatomy, United 
States’ National Museum; and Mr. Charles H. Townsend, Naturalist of the Albatross. Mr. 
George A. Clark acted as Secretary to the Commission, and took a very important part in 
its subsequent investigations. 

10. On the 19th June I departed from Victoria for Seattle, in the State of Washington, to 
join the Albatross’. On the 24th June I set sail from Seattle for Unalaska on board that 
vessel, in company with the American Commissioners and Mr. Macoun, Mr. Barrett- 
Hamilton being then on his way from San Francisco to Japan, en route for the Kurile Islands 
and the Sea of Ochotsk [sic]. 

11. On the 3rd July we reached Unalaska, and disembarked on the 8th July on the Island of 
St. George. We were here received with great kindness by Mr. James Judge, Resident Agent 
of the United States’ Treasury, and by Dr. L.A. Noyes and Captain Daniel Webster, of the 
North American Commercial Company. 

12. On the 12th July we left the Island of St. George and arrived on the same day at that 
of St. Paul, where we were received by Mr. Joseph B. Crowley, Resident Agent of the 
United States Treasury, by Mr. Joseph B. Stanley-Brown, Agent of the North American 
Commercial Company, and by Dr. Otto H. Voss and Mr. James C. Redpath, officials of the 
Company. Quarters were provided for us in the Company’s house, a small laboratory and 
a photographic room were presently fitted up for our use in an empty hut, and then and 
thereafter, during the whole of our stay, we experienced the greatest kindness and attention 
from the above-named gentlemen and from the people of the island. 

13. On the 15th July Her Majesty’s ships “Satellite” and “Icarus” arrived off the island. On 
the following morning I embarked for the Commander Islands on board the “Satellite,” 
accompanied by Dr. Jordan, to whom Commander Allen had offered the hospitality of the 
ship. 28 


584 





















































Biographies T ♦ Thompson 


Both commissions remained on the Commander Islands until the end of July. 
Thompson arrived back on St. Paul Island on September 1. He stayed one week before 
departing for London, where he arrived on the 31st of October, 1896. 

21. [in part] It deserves to be particularly recorded that on the islands we enjoyed, together 
with the American Commissioners, opportunities and privileges that had never before 
been accorded to any investigators, whether American or British; that the utmost liberty 
of action within the bounds of reason was permitted us; that, in short, we were left free to 
see all that was to be seen, and to do whatsoever commended itself to our inclinations or 
judgment. 

22. Lastly, it behoves me to acknowledge that in the investigations presently to be described 
my own part was that of one among many, and that the chief burden lay with Dr. Jordan 
and his Commission. On those great and scattered rookeries a man working singly can do 
little, where a company working in collusion can do much. Accordingly it was my business 
to co-operate continually with the Americans, to see what they saw, and to participate 

in what they did; and, as an eye-witness of all that they witnessed, I desire to place my 
testimony on record that the general success of our expedition, the new knowledge as to 
matters of fact that we obtained, and in particular the censuses that we for the first time 
attempted and achieved, were one and all the direct result of Dr. Jordan’s counsel and 
leadership. 29 

D’Arcy Thompson’s thirty-nine-page report covered the present condition of the seal 
rookeries, the extent and causes of the mortality of pup seals, the methods of driving and 
killing seals, local management, and statistics of the industry. After presenting the facts 
collected he concluded that more study was needed. Previous observations “of the herd’s 
immense decrease and the prophecies of its approaching extinction, are overdrawn and 
untenable. But it is my duty to state to your Lordship that there is still abundant need for 
care and for prudent measures of conservation in the interests of all. A birth-rate which 
we estimate at 143,000 per annum is not great in comparison with the drain upon the 
stock.” 30 

Professor Thompson returned the following summer to the islands with his assistant, 
Alexander Rodger, aboard the HMS Rainbow, arriving on St. George Island on August 
1, 1897. He stayed on the island for five days and proceeded to St. Paul Island, where he 
remained until August 16. Members of the American Commission, including Dr. David 
Starr Jordan, were also on the islands, repeating experiments in branding and erecting a 
strong fence around the Salt Lagoon to confine rejected male seals. “A Staff of American 
engineers spent the whole summer upon the islands, making a complete topographical 
survey with especial reference to the outlines of the rookeries.” 31 

As noted by Assistant Treasury Agent Thomas E. Adams in the St. Paul Island Agent’s 
Log of May 25, 1897 (pages 130-31): 

The geodetic surveying party was landed. Capt. Tuttle and Dr. Call of the Bear called this 
morning. The surveying party consists of; Wm. Ward Duffield, chief; Fremont Morse, 

Geo. R. Putnam and Geo. L. Flower, assistants; Henry J. Slaken, Joseph E. Freeman, Wm. 

S. Broughton, Chas. H. Roesch, and Fletcher G. Forny, Edward P. Rudolph and Gustov 
Bergman, workmen. The purpose is to make a minute survey of the Islands, and especially 
the seal rookeries thereon, and prepare maps in detail of the same. 

Both the U.S. and British commissions made a full count of the populations at each of 
the rookeries. They listed their counts separately and made comparisons with the popula- 


585 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


tion counts of the previous summer. Thompson in his Despatch observed that “we have 
here and hitherto omitted to take into account a factor that time may show to be of very 
considerable importance, to wit, a tendency on the part of the cows to fluctuate from year 
to year in their movements, and to frequent now one and now another rookery.” 32 To sup¬ 
port his point, Thompson relied upon observations made by his assistant, James Macoun. 

The female when she lands goes, if possible, to that rookery or part of a rookery on which 
the greatest number of seals is congregated, so that the seals might wholly disappear from 
the small straggling rookeries while thousands remained on the larger, more compact ones. 

There was never any evidence in support of the theory that young seals returned to the 
rookeries upon which they were born, nor even that the females returned to the rookeries 
upon which they had been impregnated the previous year, though there was a natural 
presumption in favour of the latter theory. Observations in 1897, however, show that is 
not the case. A few female seals (nine in number, according to Dr. Jordan, Report, 1896, p. 

62) were branded on North Rookery, St. George Island, in 1896. Two of these were seen 
in 1897, one on East Rookery, St. George Island, the other on Zapadnie Rookery, St. Paul. 

None were seen on the rookery upon which they were branded. One of two branded on 
Lukannon Rookery in 1896 was seen to land there in 1897 by Mr. Clarke, but it was lost 
sight of. So that what data we have goes to show that female seals not only do not usually 
return to the rookeries on which they were the previous year, but that sometimes at least 
they go to another island. 33 

Thompson reported an important discovery made during the summer’s work of 1897, 
one that could be used by the British government in seeking to overrule the U.S. position 
that pelagic sealing was solely responsible for the decline in the fur-seal herd. 

During last winter Dr. Stiles, a well-known American helminthologist, reasoning from 
the very high mortality of the pups on sandy as compared with that on the rocky areas, 
suggested to the American Commissioners that a cause of the mortality might be found 
in a parasitic worm of the genus Uncinaria ( Dochmius ), which passes a portion of its life- 
history in sand, and of which one species is known to be a common and fatal parasite of 
young puppy dogs. This fruitful and ingenious suggestion has been found correct. 34 

Professor Thompson offered some profound observations following his work on the 
Pribilof Islands. 

I can call to mind no other animal whose numerical abundance and fluctuations are [as] 
open to observation as are those of the fur seal. It is the only animal in the world of whose 
actual numbers we have something like a definite idea. Nevertheless, my experience of a 
second year renders me inclined to trust less confidently than before to the accuracy of the 
figures that even here the most industrious observer can obtain. 

We are forced again and again to select approximate figures, and we are apt afterwards to 
forget their vagueness and to treat them as precise; and in our summary of separate results, 
extremely different, we are constrained to adopt averages, though we have no knowledge of 
our right to use so simple an arithmetic. 35 

Despite his scientific predilection, Thompson appeared in his concluding paragraphs 
to recognize the politics that sent him to observe the northern fur seal. 

It is safe to say that the breeding herd has diminished by 5 per cent, [sic] since 1896; we 
may, I believe, reasonably presume that the decrease is somewhat greater than this: but I 
don’t think we need or ought to ascribe to the decrease a preciser figure. 

But whether we confine ourselves to a diminution of 5 per cent, that, I think has 
indubitably taken place, or permit ourselves to consider the possibility or probability of the 
diminution having been greater still, it behoves us to remember that a remedy has already 


586 





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587 















Pribilof Islands: The People 


been automatically applied in the reduction of the pelagic fleet to less than one-half its 
numbers of a year ago. The tendency is to equilibrium. The total pelagic catch for this year 
is not likely to exceed 20,000 against 36,000 last year: and it may be that, with a catch so 
greatly diminished, the point of equilibrium has been at length attained. 5 '' 

Professor Thompson is credited with brokering the deal that brought the dispute to 
an end at the Washington Conference in November of 1897. As a result of his work on 
the Commission, he was made a Knight Commander of the Bath by Queen Victoria at 
Windsor on July 13,1898. This honor was followed in December 1898 by his appointment 
to the Fishery Board of Scotland. 


Tingle, George Robert (1836-1903) 

Special Agent, U.S. Treasury Department, Seal Islands, 1885-1889 
Superintendent, North American Commercial Company, 1890-1892 

Genealogy 

George Robert Tingle was born on March 6,1836, in Norwich, Muskingum County, Ohio, 
to Joseph D. Tingle and Catherine (Thomas) Tingle. George Tingle was married twice, 
first to Lelia Jane Stephens (born 1836, died September 27, 1862), 3 in Wheeling, Virginia 
(later West Virginia). George and Lelia had three children: the Honorable Edward Tingle, 
ex-consul to Brunswick, Germany, and subsequently managing editor of a Philadelphia 
daily newspaper; Lelia; and Katie (Mrs. Frank Jones of New York City). His second mar¬ 
riage, to Pink Robertson, produced one son, George Robert Tingle Jr., who was born in 
Wheeling on September 14, 1878. George Jr. became prominent in the Colorado Springs, 
Colorado, mining industry. The senior Tingle died at the home of his sister in Wichita, 
Kansas, in August 1903. 38 

Biographical Sketch 

George Tingle Sr. left Ohio for Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia), in 1852 and em¬ 
barked upon a career in the wholesale dry goods business, starting as a clerk and book¬ 
keeper with Tallant & Delaplain. He moved into the wholesale grocery business and 
became a member of the firm Maxwell, Campbell & Tingle, which evolved into the firm 
Tingle and Isham in 1870. In 1876, he became sheriff of Wheeling, and he continued in 
that position along with various others until his departure from Wheeling in 1882. He 
ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1880. His efforts led to the establishing of the State 
Fair Association of West Virginia by an act of the West Virginia Legislature on February 
18, 1881. In June 1882, he left West Virginia for Montana and was elected and served as a 
Democratic representative from Dawson, Montana, from 1884 to 1885. 39 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Presumably as a consequence of his congressional connections, George Robert Tingle Sr. 
was appointed by President Grover Cleveland in April 1885 to serve as government agent 
of St. Paul and St. George islands. He arrived at St. Paul Island aboard the steamer St. Paul 


588 







Biographies T ♦ Thompson - Tingle 


on May 29, 1885, with his wife, Pink, and two of their children, Catherine and George Jr. 
Along with the passenger list, outgoing agent H. H. Glidden wrote in the Agent’s Log, 
“Being relieved from duty by a change in the politics of the national administration. I 
return to San Francisco by the St. Paul in a few days.” 40 Glidden’s comment serves to clari¬ 
fy for researchers that at least some of the agents served under presidential appointment. 
Upon filling his new position as the government’s representative on the Pribilof Islands, 
Tingle wrote in the Agent’s Log: 

I am the representative of the Government upon those islands and have three assistant 
agents. I am required to see that the lessees do not violate the law under their contract, 
and I am supposed to govern the natives, protect them and regulate them. Practically 
[speaking] the Government agents are the governors of the islands in connection with the 
management of the seal business. 41 

He further offered: 

The natives on the islands of St. Paul and St. George look upon the Treasury agent as their 
friend and protector as against the company employing them, and to him they appeal in 
case of any imaginary or real grievance. He is regarded by them as their governor and 
judge. 42 

Tingle’s tenure was marked by some personal conflicts. The most significant arose 
from allegations by his assistant, Special Agent William Gavitt, of misconduct by Alaska 
Commercial Company (ACC) employees under Tingle’s watch, and from charges by 
Tingle’s successor, Charles Goff, that the size of the fur-seal herd had been grossly miscal¬ 
culated (see Gavitt and Goff biographies). 

Aspects of his personality and background, such as being a former sheriff, likely gave 
direction for his position toward pelagic sealers. 

Three marauding vessels have been sighted this season cruising around the islands of St. 

George and St. Paul, and have been heard shooting seals in the water, but so far have not 
landed or disturbed any of the rookeries. The Treasury agents on both islands keep vigilant 
watch, but owing to the long distance between rookeries it would be entirely possible for a 
vessel to land a crew in small boats and make a killing on shore, and get away without being 
seen. Captain Loud and myself have made two trips by boat and on foot to points where 
shooting was reported by the natives to have been heard without seeing the vessels or any 
evidence on shore of their having landed. Mr. T.J. Ryan, assistant Treasury agent at St. 

George, watched a schooner off Zapadnie rookery, St. George, for ten days. She remained 
in sight most of the time, and sent her crew out in small boats to shoot seal in the water, 
but was so far out at sea that she could not be reached by open boat, the only means Mr. 

Ryan had at his command with which to reach the pirate. 

The positive knowledge of these marauding vessels’ hovering around the islands, constantly 
violating the law, brings me to a matter briefly referred to in my letter to the Department 
June 7, viz, the necessity for better protection of seal life in these waters adjacent to the seal 
fisheries. The Treasury agents are not provided with a craft of any kind in which to pursue 
and board a marauder. We go after them as best we can, by borrowing a work mule, or 
walk, or open rowboat. 43 

Under the subheading “Pirates,” Tingle added a hypothetical scenario to his 1885 
annual report that could have inspired the 1927 novel The Far Call, if author Edison 
Marshall had had access to the Pribilof Agent’s Logs. 

One Winchester rifle, which I brought with me, is the only gun on the island, provided 
with ammunition, ready for business, should occasion require it. It is a matter of great 


589 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


astonishment that these islands have for fifteen years escaped a raid from a crew of 
desperate men. Because they have not been so visited is no argument in favor of future 
escape. A vessel with a crew of 25 well-armed, determined men, of less courage than a 
gang who would rob a jewelry store or bank in New York in daylight, could land here any 
time and “hold up” the dozen white men, unprepared for defense, and guard them, while 5 
armed men could compel all the natives to turn out and load aboard the vessel all the seal 
skins salted in the company’s salt houses; then go to St. George Island and do the same 
thing. The pirate, having secured the whole of the company’s valuable catch, could sail off 
to China. 44 

Marshall’s story, written forty years later, was similar, but Tingle’s “what if” account 
was not necessarily the stuff of fiction. Marauding pelagic sealers did land on the Pribilof 
Islands many times before and after Tingle’s tenure. 

The record hints that Tingle used his agent’s position for personal gain. His 1888 
testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Merchant Marine 
and Fisheries caused friction over the question of whether pelagic sealing or land-based 
sealing should be stopped completely, and he challenged the allegations of misconduct 
brought that year against ACC agents on St. George Island by Special Agent Gavitt (see 
William Gavitt biography). In 1889, Tingle became an employee of the ACC. During his 
government job, he had emphasized in his annual reports that the seal herds were not 
decreasing in number but rather were increasing. Such a report would allow the ACC 
to continue to harvest its quota of 100,000 seals per annum. (As noted numerous times 
within this volume, however, he was not the only government employee to be hired by the 
lessee on the islands after his government service.) 

I am happy to be able to report that, although late landing, the breeding rookeries are 
filled out to the lines of measurement heretofore made, and some of them much beyond 
those lines, showing conclusively that seal life is not being depleted, but is fully up to the 
estimates given in my report of 1887. 45 [See Charles James Goff biography.] 

Tingle’s assertions that the seal herds were healthy flew in the face of the U.S. posi¬ 
tion that pelagic sealers, many of whom were based in Canada, were clearly decimating 
the herd. 

George Tingle who was then a Special Agent of the Treasury, his report was very 
acceptable to the Alaska Company, but it has proved troublesome to the State Department, 
for the British people interested in poaching have repeatedly thrown Tingle’s report in 
the face of the Secretary of State to answer his suggestions about the importance of a 
protective agreement. 46 

Tingle’s Agent Logs provided numerous insights into conditions on the islands. The 
following, if an accurate interpretation, offers a Native’s perspective on personal health, 
life and death. 

The usual number of deaths occurred this year [1888], mostly the result of imprudent 
exposure. Although the best medical treatment is furnished them, with medicines free, 
they fail to give that careful attention to nursing which is necessary to bring them through. 

When they are remonstrated with for exposing themselves unnecessarily in bad weather, 
they generally reply in Russian, “Never mind; to die is good.” When once prepared for death 
by the priest of the Greek Church, they calmly and happily await the end. No tears are 
shed by the relatives of the deceased and no sorrow is manifested in the household. If it is 
a wife, the husband, according to their custom, makes the coffin, and if a husband, then the 
nearest male relative makes the coffin. The body in all cases is taken to the church, where 


590 




Biographies T ♦ Tingle 


the services are held, at the conclusion of which every man, woman, and child kisses the 
corpse on the forehead and on the left cheek. The body is then carried to the grave by the 
relatives and buried. A few days after the funeral a tea party is given at the house of the 
deceased, and is usually largely attended, mostly by the female portion of the population. 

After forty days’ mourning and prayer, the surviving wife or husband, as the case may be, is 
at liberty to marry again. 47 

Perhaps it was Tingle’s agitation over the injustices alleged by William Gavitt, or the 
uncertainty of the seal-herd numbers proffered by Charles Goff, or the question of a new 
leasing contract for the Seal Islands, or the change in the executive branch (Benjamin 
Harrison defeated President Cleveland, who had appointed Tingle)—or all those fac¬ 
tors—but in 1889 he took up temporary residence in San Francisco, resigned his position 
as Treasury agent and joined the Alaska Commercial Company as its Seal Islands agent. 
When the ACC did not win the new government twenty-year lease, Tingle joined the 
North American Commercial Company as its general agent and superintendent. He re¬ 
mained in the position until the start of the Fur-Seal Arbitration hearings in 1892. 48 



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NACC Christmas banquet, St. Paul Island. (Univ of Washington Libraries, Special Collections 
Division. Photo: N. B. Miller. PH Coll. 595.7.) 


591 
















Pribilof Islands: The People 


Townsend, Charles Haskins (1859-1944) 

Zoologist and Naturalist, U.S. Fish Commission, 1883-1902 
Director, New York Aquarium, 1902-1937 

Genealogy 

Charles Haskins Townsend was born in Parnassus, 
Pennsylvania, on September 29, 1859, to the 
Reverend Daniel W. Townsend and Elizabeth 
(Kier) Townsend. Charles died on January 28, 
1944, in Coconut Grove, Florida. 49 

Biographical Sketch 

In 1883, Charles Townsend was appointed by 
Spencer Baird, head of the U.S. Fish Commission, 
as Assistant U.S. Fish Commissioner for salmon 
propagation in California. His first Alaska experi¬ 
ence came in 1885, when he was assigned as natu¬ 
ralist aboard the Revenue Cutter Corwin during 
an Arctic expedition. He was then assigned to the 
research steamer Albatross for the next ten years, 
charting deep-sea habitats in the Pacific Ocean. 
He was a member of the Jordan Commission of 
1896-1898, created to investigate the condition 
of the northern fur seal and the effect of pelagic sealing on the seal population. Townsend 
then served as Chief of Fisheries with the U.S. Fish Commission from 1897 to 1902. He 
left government service in 1902 to become director of the New York Aquarium, where he 
remained until 1937. He documented his findings in more than one hundred publications 
on fisheries, the fur-seal industry, deep-sea exploration, maps and charts, and general 
zoology. 50 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Charles Haskins Townsend first arrived on the Pribilof Islands in 1885, and he would 
make additional forays each year during 1891-1895. 51 In 1885, the St. Paul Island Agent’s 
Log for June 7 reported, “Lt. J. C. Cantwell of the Revenue Cutter Corwin was sent to 
Otter Island today with two sailors, and provisions, to guard the island during sealing 
season. He was accompanied by Mr. Chas. H. Townsend of the Fish commission [sic], 
Washington, D.C. who is collecting specimens of birds, sea lions, walrus, and seals for the 
Smithsonian Institution.” Relative to the Pribilof Islands, Townsend is best recognized for 
his work as naturalist on the Albatross during the pelagic sealing era of the 1890s, which 
included stints on the Pribilof Islands. His photographs, marked with the distinctive ini¬ 
tials CHT, are found in many government reports and historical books discussing the 
effects of the pelagic sealing fleets on the northern fur-seal population. Under the aegis 
of the Fish Commission, Townsend directed research on the condition of seal rookeries 



Charles Haskins Townsend, 1883. (The 
Condor, vol. 29, 1927.) 


592 







Biographies T ♦ Townsend - True 


during the years 1893-1895, and he reported to the U.S. Senate in a graphic document 
with accompanying topographic maps and rookery photographs. 52 The rookery photo¬ 
graphs taken by Townsend and Norman Briscoe Miller in 1895 were published as a sepa¬ 
rate atlas in 1896 and later described by Scheffer et al. in History of Scientific Study (page 
13) as “a valuable record of seal distribution on the breeding grounds at a low point in 
herd size.” 

Charles Townsend was an avid birder and collected rare specimens for the National 
Museum; on the Pribilof Islands in 1894 he collected a specimen of the Asiatic stint 
(Tringa damacensis), which he noted was “far off its beat.” In a 1927 article in The Condor, 
the journal of the Cooper Ornithological Society, he told the story of his love of nature 
and how he became part of the Fish Commission. 53 


True, Frederick William (1858-1914) 

Curator of Mammals, National Museum 
U.S. Fish Commission, Pribilof Islands, 1895 

Head Curator, Department of Biology National Museum, 1897-1911 
Genealogy 

Frederick William True was born in Glastonbury, Hartford County, Connecticut, on July 
8, 1858, to William and Rebecca (Marriner) True. 54 Frederick True married Louise E. 
Prentiss, daughter of physician Daniel Webster and Emilie A. (Schmidt) Prentiss, in 1889 
at Washington, D.C. 55 Frederick and Louise had two children, both born in Washington: 
Marion True, born 1890, and Webster Prentiss True, born October 1, 1892, and died 
December 19, 1976, in Acton, Massachusetts. 56 Marion married Edward L. Bullock Jr. in 
Washington, D.C., in June 1920. 5 " Frederick William True died in Washington, D.C., on 
June 25, 1914. Louise (Prentiss) True died August 3, 1957, also in Washington. 58 

Biographical Sketch 

Frederick True received his BS degree from the City University of New York in 1878, 
and after graduation served as a clerk with the U.S. Fish Commission. He was the 
Commissions custodian of exhibits at the Berlin Fisheries Exposition of 1880. The next 
year he joined the Smithsonian Institution staff as librarian and acting curator of mam¬ 
mals. He advanced in his career to become the first head curator of the Department of 
Biology at the U.S. National Museum (1897-1911). On June 1, 1911, he was appointed 
Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, a position he held until his death on 
June 25, 1914. 59 

True studied both living and fossil marine mammals and is best known for his 
contributions on mysticetes and the beaked whales ... He began his career with the 
U.S. Fish Commission, but his job at the Smithsonian allowed him to work in a close 
realtionship with the two research groups. In True’s Exploration Work of the Smithsonian 
Institution, 1897, he repeatedly emphasizes Spencer F. Baird’s interest in exploration, and 
how he furthered it at the Smithsonian Institution. 60 


593 







Pribilof Islands: The People 



Frederick W. True with whale vertebra. (SIRIS- 
2002-32245.) 


Commission of Fish and Fisheries, provided 

dated May 11: 

Mr. Frederick W. True, 

Executive Curator and Curator of Mammals, 
U.S. National Museum, Washington, D.C. 

Dear Sir:- 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

Frederick True’s Pribilof Islands assign¬ 
ment began with letters from Assistant 
Secretary G. Brown Goode and Secretary 
S. P. Langley of the Smithsonian 
Institution, dated May 11 and May 13, 
1895, respectively. True was temporar¬ 
ily relieved from the Smithsonian and 
detailed to the U.S. Commission of Fish 
and Fisheries to “make a comprehensive 
study of the natural history of the fur seal 
and of the condition of the seal rooker¬ 
ies on the Pribilof Islands, Alaska.” 61 
Acting Commissioner Herbert Gill, U.S. 
initial instructions to True in a letter also 


On the understanding that you are willing to undertake on behalf of the Commission 
during the coming summer an investigation of the Pribilof Islands, Alaska, and the consent 
thereto having been given by the Director of the U.S. National Museum, you are hereby 
appointed a temporary scientific assistant of the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries at 
a compensation of two hundred and twenty-five dollars ($225) a month, commencing from 
May 16, 1895. While engaged in the field your expenses will be paid, upon the presentation 
of proper vouchers. 

The U.S.S. Albatross, which will convey you to the Pribiloff Islands, will leave Mare Island, 
California, about the 20th May, touching en route at Port Townsend, Washington, where 
she should arrive about May 25, and at which place you should join her. Upon applying to 
this office, transportation requests covering your railroad fare to and from Port Townsend 
will be furnished you. 

Instructions as to the duties expected of you will be furnished by Mr. Richard Rathbun, 

Assistant in Charge of the Division of Inquiry respecting Food Fishes of this Commission. 

Very respectfully 
Herbert A. Gill 
Acting Commissioner 62 

In a memorandum from the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries dated May 15, 
1895, True received orders on how to proceed with his investigations, which included 
instructions to work with Charles Townsend, naturalist on the Albatross. Excerpts from 
the nine-page memorandum follow. 


Memorandum for Mr. F. W. True 

The investigations on the Pribilof Islands, as originally planned for the summer of 1895, 
are discussed in the instructions to the commanding officer of the steamer Albatross under 
the heading “Observations on the Pribilof Islands,” a copy [of] which is furnished you. This 
part of Captain Drake’s instructions sets forth the principal subjects of direct practical 


594 











Biographies T ♦ True 


importance, which it was considered could be handled by the regular staff of the steamer 
Albatross, but there are many other matters, especially of a more technical character, which 
deserve attention. 

In a recent letter to Captain Drake the instructions have been materially modified as 
regards the islands. Mr. Townsend will make the photographs and delineations of the 
rookeries as heretofore. Captain Drake has also been informed that Mr. Townsend had 
best attend to the matters included under the headings "Number of seals on the rookeries,” 
and “Bachelor and bull seals,” as they involve a comparison with former years, but it was 
suggested to him that the work could probably be done to best advantage by you and Mr. 
Townsend conjointly.... 

It should, therefore, be borne in mind that conditions have changed greatly within a 
comparatively few years. Formerly, pelagic sealing was confined chiefly to the North 
Pacific Ocean, and the killing on the islands was extensive. Now, but few are killed on the 
islands, and, judging by all accounts, the pelagic sealing in Bering Sea is most vicious in its 
character. By measuring the amount of harm, if any, done today by the prevailing method 
of driving and culling, the extent of damage caused in the past by the same agency may be 
relatively estimated.... 

Briefly, the principal questions sought to be explained by the investigations are the extent 
and character of decrease among the seals, the causes thereof, and the best remedies to be 
applied. The decrease is to be measured separately for the females, the breeding bulls, and 
the bachelors. The breeding bulls are said to be generally free from the attacks of pelagic 
sealers, owing to the limited extent of their movements in the water. The bachelors and 
females both come within the range of pelagic sealing operations, but in Bering Sea it is 
claimed that the majority of the seals which move far away from the islands, after August 
1, are females. If the principal decrease is among the bachelors, it would appear as though 
it had been caused by practices on the islands; if among the females, or both sexes alike, 
pelagic sealing might be safely blamed. But in this connection it should be remembered 
that the number of bachelors has always been kept down, as this is the category which 
the lessees of the islands are allowed to kill, and a great reduction in their numbers has 
not been regarded as actually harmful, so long as the male element was kept sufficiently 
strong to insure the perpetuation for the rookeries. As regards this latter subject, Mr. Elliott 
considers that a sufficient quantity of males has not been preserved, and this is a very 
important matter for investigation.... 

As to the natural history work, I would suggest that you first determine in what direction 
the most good can be accomplished. That fact can readily be brought out by a comparison 
of the statements of the different observers. You will find the season altogether too short to 
study the habits of the seals in all particulars, and many of their characteristics may have 
been so well established by previous investigators as to require only slight attention from 
yourself. 

It is very desirable that you take some account of the practices and needs of the islands 
in addition to the questions of driving and culling, as suggestions for the improvement 
of affairs generally upon the islands will undoubtedly be acceptable at the Treasury 
Department.... 

Very truly yours, 

Richard Rathbun 63 

Using earlier reports and photographs taken by previous investigators, True reported 
his findings, excerpted below, at the end of his investigation. 

I have no hesitation in affirming that the seals were considerably less abundant this year 
than last.... 

I regard the herds as in a very precarious condition as regards preservation, and while it is 
obviously impossible to fix limits in such a case, if the off-shore sealing operations continue 


595 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


as at present I should expect to see the cows 
practically exterminated in less than five years.... 

It has been generally conceded, that the decrease 
of the seals is due to human interference, and in 
view of the many known cases of extermination by 
human agency, there is no reason for dissent from 
this opinion.... 

I may mention two plans, in the nature of 
indirect remedies, which seem to me worthy of 
consideration.... 

It appears to me entirely feasible to brand the seals 
with a property mark. If the cows are to be so 
treated, it would be best to place the brand on the 
back, where it could be plainly seen. This would 
also have the effect of rendering the skins of the 
cows unmarketable, and there would be no object 
in destroying them. 

... in case of the presence of pelagic sealers in 
Bering Sea next season, the entire body of seals 
might be driven back from the rookeries and 
retained in the inland lakes and lagoons for about 
six weeks, or during the period when pelagic 
sealing is mainly carried on in that region. 64 

True’s recommendation to brand seals was apparently accepted. In 1896, “The first 
attempt to mark seals by hot-iron branding was conducted by [Joseph] Murray (a cattle¬ 
man from Colorado) on North Rookery [St. George Island] in August 1896.” 65 



CltsviAi 

fStfS. 


An Unangax man in the Village of St. 
Paul, St. Paul Island, 1895. (NAA, 
Frederick William True, lot 37, 1467700.) 


In addition to his observations of fur seals, True made a study of the fox population 
and also collected plants and birds on the island. His observations were logged in his daily 
journal. 66 



Looking along “the main street;’St. Paul Island, 1895. (NAA, Frederick William True, lot 
37, 1466900.) 


596 











# * ( 
lAif caJ<j dU Sfml'P AczaM y 

4Lir. ^(XakJL %J .' CP Hr K^U ■ft / rf/ii/tA . 

! < ir < jS■ <F. M. 3 /ujuZ, . 1^ 


Men landing a baidarra at East Landing, with Black Bluffs in the background, St. Paul 
Island, 1895. (NAA, Frederick William True, lot 37, 1466400.) 



Two men walking along “the main street)’ St. Paul Village, St. Paul Island, 1895. (NAA, 
Frederick William True, lot 37, 1467500.) 


597 













A man walking with his wheelbarrow down “the main street,” St. Paul Village, St. Paul 
Island, 1895. (NAA, Frederick William True, lot 37, 1467300.) 



“Parascovia and her son” St. Paul Village, St. Paul Island, 1895. This may be Parascovia 
Oustegoff, wife of Peter Oustegoff, and their four-year old son, Neil. According to the cap¬ 
tion on the photograph, Parascovia did the “washing and made fires” for Frederick True 
and his colleagues. (NAA, Frederick William True, lot 37, 1467800.) 


598 









Biographies T ♦ True - Notes 


1 Biographical Review, Biographical Review: This Volume Contains Biographical Sketches of the 
Leading Citizens of Livingston and Wyoming Counties, New York (Boston; Biographical Review 
Publishing Co., 1895), 299-300; Andrew W. Young, History of the Town of Warsaw, New York 
(Buffalo, NY: Sage, Sons & Co., 1869), 337-9; U.S. Census, 1900, Washington, DC, NARA, mi¬ 
crofilm roll T623, box 160, page 16B; Helen Benedict search, Roots Web World Connect Project: 

Kondratieff/Wood” at http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com (accessed Sept. 4, 2009); and Harry 
S. Douglas, Famous Sons and Daughters of Wyoming County, New York," Wyoming County 
Newspaper, 1935. 

2 Douglas, “Famous Sons and Daughters.” 

3 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, convened at Paris 
under the Treaty between the United States of America and Great Britain, concluded at Washington 
February 29, 1892, for the determination of questions between the two governments concerning the 
jurisdictional rights of the United States in the waters of Bering Sea, vol. 3 (Washington, DC: GPO, 
1895), 373-5. 

4 U.S. Federal Census, 1910, Ancestry.com. 

5 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 175. 

6 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries and General Resources of 
Alaska (Washington, DC: GPO, 1898), vol. 1, 148. 

7 “Earlin Family Tree,” Ancestry World Tree at Ancestry.com (accessed Sept. 29, 2003). 

8 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 153. 

9 Betty A. Lindsay and John A. Lindsay, Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Genealogy and Census, NOAA Tech. 
Memo. NOS ORR 18 (2009), 260. 

10 Ibid., 9. 

11 Ibid., 57 and 341-2. 

12 Ibid., 59. 

13 Ibid., 438. 

14 Ibid., 59. 

15 Ibid., 538. 

16 Ibid., 567. 

17 Ibid., 59. 

18 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, Aug. 27, 1913. 

19 “Lloyd Tevis,” Biography Resource Center, Galenet; Cypress Lawn Memorial Park, Colma, San 
Mateo County, CA, http://www.cypresslawn.com/notables_tevis.html (accessed Feb. 27, 2003); and 
Fresno Weekly Republican, Aug. 10, 1899, 3. 

20 “Lloyd Tevis is Dead, Well-known Capitalist...”, New York Times, July 25, 1899. 

21 “Lloyd Tevis,” Biography Resource Center, Galenet; Cypress Lawn Memorial Park, Colma, San 
Mateo County, CA; and Fresno Weekly Republican, Aug. 10, 1899, 3. 

22 A. L. Belden, The Fur Trade of America (NY: The Peltries, 1917); and Henry Poland, Fur Bearing 
Animals in Nature and Commerce (London, UK: Gurney and Jackson, 1892), xlii. 

23 Univ. of St. Andrews, An Index to the Correspondence and Papers of Sir DArcy Wentworth 
Thompson, St. Andrews Univ. Pub. no. 64, (1987), ix-xiii. 

24 “D’Arcy Thompson. School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St. Andrews, Scotland,” 
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/mathematicians/ThompsonD Arcy.html (accessed Oct. 

4, 2004); and Univ. of St. Andrews, An Index to the Correspondence. 

25 “Photographs from the D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson Collection,” Archives HUB, Univ. of St. 
Andrews, http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk/ (accessed Oct. 4, 2004). 

26 Note: the “Report” began with item “2” there was no item “1.” 

27 D’Arcy Thompson, Report by Professor DArcy Thompson on his Mission to Behring Sea in 1896, 
dated Mar. 4, 1897 (London, UK: Harrison and Sons, 1897), 1. 

28 Ibid., 1-2. 

29 Ibid., 3. 

30 Ibid., 35. 

31 D’Arcy Thompson, Despatch from Professor DArcy Thompson, Forwarding a Report on his Mission to 
Behring Sea in 1897 (London, UK: Harrison and Sons), 1. 

32 Ibid., 7. 

33 Ibid., 7. 


599 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


34 Ibid., 8. 

35 Ibid., 14-15. 

36 Ibid., 15. 

37 “Smith-Wilkins,” Ancestry World Tree at Ancestry.com, (accessed Apr. 23, 2006). 

38 George W. Atkinson, Prominent Men of West Virginia, vol. 2 (Wheeling, WV: W. L. Callin, 1890), 
867; West Virginia Memory Project, Feb. 18, 1881, record ID 4265, http://www.wvculture.org/his- 
tory/wvmemory/timelinedetail (accessed Feb. 16, 2006); U.S. Census, 1900, Familysearch.com; and 
Wheeling Register obituaries, Aug. 3, 6, 7, 8, and 10, 1903. 

39 Wheeling Register obituary, Aug. 6, 1903. 

40 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, May 29, 1885, 366. 

41 U.S. Congress, House, “Report from the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries of the House 
of Representatives,” in The Fur-Seal and Other Fisheries of Alaska: Investigation of the Fur-Seal and 
Other Fisheries of Alaska. 50th Cong., 2nd sess., H. Rep. no. 3883 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1889), 

153. 

42 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries, vol. 1, 175. 

43 Ibid., 174. 

44 Ibid. 

45 Ibid., 207. 

46 U.S. Congress, House, Investigation of the Fur-Seal and Other Fisheries, 153; and “The Alaska Seal 
Islands,” New York Times, Mar. 5, 1889, 9. 

47 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries of Alaska, vol. 1, 208. 

48 U.S. Congress, Senate, Seal Islands of Alaska. Letter from the Acting Secretary of the Treasury, 
transmitting, in Response to a Resolution of the Senate, Reports Concerning the Condition of the 
Seal Islands of Alaska, 51st Cong., 2nd sess., Ex Doc. no. 49 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1891), 27; and 
“San Francisco, California Directories, 1889-91,” Ancestry.com 2000 (original data: San Francisco, 
California, 1889-90, and W. H. L. Corran, 1889, San Francisco, CA, 1890-1891, Painter and Co., 
1890; accessed Feb. 16, 2006). 

49 “Obituaries: Charles Haskins Townsend,” The Auk 64, no. 2 (Apr. 1947): 349-50. 

50 Charles Haskins Townsend, “Old Times with the Birds: Autobiographical,” The Condor 29: 224-32; 
and “Obituaries: Charles Haskins Townsend,” The Auk, 349-50. 

51 Victor B. Scheffer, Clifford H. Fiscus, and Ethel I. Todd, History of Scientific Study and Management 
of the Alaskan Fur Seal, Callorhinus ursinus, 1786-1964, NOAA Tech. Rep. NMFS SSRF-780, 1984, 
13. 

52 U.S. Congress, Senate, Reports of Agents, Officers, and Persons Acting Under the Authority of the 
Secretary of the Treasury, in Relation to the Condition of Seal Life on the Rookeries of the Pribilof 
Islands, arid to Pelagic Sealing in Bering Sea and the North Pacific Ocean in the Years 1893-1895, 
54th Cong., 1st sess., S. Doc. no. 137, pt. 2. (Washington, DC: GPO, 1896). 

53 Townsend, “Old Times with the Birds,” 224-32. 

54 “True/Ullmann-Norman Hultquist Genealogy Database,” Ancestry World Tree at Ancestry.com; and 
"Frederick William True Papers, ca. 1886-1910,” SIA RU 7181, http://siarchives.si.edu/, which cites 
Middletown, CT, as True’s birthplace. 

55 U.S. Census, 1870, Washington, DC, NARA roll M593_124, 248; Daniel Webster Prentice, IGI indi¬ 
vidual record, film no. 451022, ref. no. 21379, http://www.familysearch.org; U.S. Dept, of State, U.S. 
Passport Applications, 1795-1925, NARA, RG 59, M1372, July 5, 1892, no. 42583; and U.S. Census, 
1900, Washington, DC, NARA, roll T623_158, 5A. 

56 U.S. Selective Service System, World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918, Washington, 

DC, Draft Board 10, NARA, M1509, roll 1556847, card 2440; and Massachusetts Dept, of Health 
Services, Massachusetts Death Index, 1970-2003, Boston, MA, no. 052009. 

57 U.S. Census, 1900, Washington, DC, NARA roll T623_158, 5A; and “License to Marry,” Washington 
Post, June 2, 1920, 14. 

58 “Frederick William True,” Washington Post, June 26, 1914, 5; “Obituary,” Frederick William True, 
Washington Post, July 27, 1914, 11; and “Obituary, Louise P. True,” Washington Post and Times 
Herald (Washington, DC), Aug. 3, 1957, 14. 

59 Frederick William True Papers, circa 1886-1910, SIA, RU 7181, box 1, folder 2, series 5, Notebooks 
and Related Materials Concerning 1895 Trip to Pribilof Islands, http://siarchives.si.edu/findingaids/ 
FARU7181.htm (accessed Apr. 13, 2004). 


600 




Biographies T ♦ Notes 


60 Smithsonian Institution Research Information System, History of the Smithsonian Catalog, Historic 

Images of the Smithsonian, RU 95, box 22A, folder 77, http://siris-sihistory.si.edu/ (accessed Feb. 23, 
2006). 

61 Frederick William True Papers, circa 1886-1910, SIA, History of the Smithsonian Catalog, RU 7181, 
box 1, folder 2, http://siris-sihistory.si.edu/ (accessed Feb. 23, 2006) 

62 Ibid. 

63 Ibid. 

64 U.S. Congress, Senate, Reports of Agents, Officers, and Persons, 108-11. 

65 Scheffer et al., History of Scientific Study, 15. 

66 Frederick William True Papers, ca. 1886-1910, SIA, RU 7181, box 3, folder 1,. 



Universal Pictures film crewman and extras for The World In His Arms, St. Paul Island, 1952. (NARA, 
Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, RG 22-95-ADMC-534) 


601 










Seal carcass By-Products Plant, St. Paul Island, ca. 1960. (NOAA, NMML Library, Seattle, WA, 
VBS-2419.98.) 



Aleut Family at St. Paul Island in 1894, cleaning sea lion small intestines which will be 
dried and used for making kamleikas (a native waterproof coat) and fancy bags trimmed 
with feathers (AMNH Special Collections, Chichester Coll., HDC165, neg. 034916). 


602 






















V 


Veniaminov, Ioann (Ivan) (1797—1879) 

Russian Orthodox Priest, Missionary, Archbishop, Metropolitan, Saint 
Resident at Unalaska with a mission church on the Seal Islands, 1824-1834 

Genealogy and Biographical Sketch 

Bishop Innokentii (Innocent) Veniaminov was 
born Ioann 1 (Ivan/John) Evseevich Popov on 
August 20, 1797, to a poor family headed by 
Evsei Popov at the village of Aginskoe in Siberia. 

Veniaminov’s father, who worked as the sacristan 
for the local church, died when his son was six. 

Ivan lived with his uncle, Dmitrii Popov, deacon 
of the local church. After the death of his aunt, 

Ivan studied at the Irkutsk Theological Seminary 
until he was seventeen. 2 

In 1814, the well-loved bishop of Irkutsk, 

Veniamin (Benjamin), died. The rector of the 
seminary, seeking to perpetuate the name, chose 
his best pupil, young Ivan Popov, to bear it; he 
was thereafter know as Ioann (Ivan) Evseevich 
Veniaminov. 

In 1817, even before he had finished school, Ivan married Ekaterina Ivanovna (her surname 
is unknown), the daughter of a priest. This disappointed his superiors, who had expected 
to enroll him in the Theological Academy at Moscow.... Graduated from the seminary in 
1820, he was ordained as a priest in 1821. 

In 1823, the Holy Synod asked the Bishop of Irkutsk to send a priest to the island of 
Unalashka, in far-away Russian America. No one, including Veniaminov, wished to go 
to that remote corner of the empire. However, it so happened that a promyshlenik, Ivan 
Kriukov, after 40 years in the Aleutian Islands, had returned to Irkutsk to visit his family. 



Innokentii Veniaminov, Metropolitan 
of Moscow. (Library of Congress, mtfph 
c0016.) 


603 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


Kriukov’s relatives’ father confessor was Veniaminov, whom Kriukov soon came to love and 
admire. Kriukov described the Aleuts’ hunger for Christian teachings so eloquently that 
Veniaminov volunteered for the post. 

On 7 May 1823, Veniaminov set out from Irkutsk with his aged mother, his wife Ekaterina, 
his young brother Stefan, aged 18, and a young son. 3 

In September 1823, Fr. Veniaminov and his family arrived at New Archangel (Sitka), 
where they remained until the summer of 1824, when they relocated to Unalashka 
(Unalaska). At New Archangel, Father Veniaminov began to learn the rudiments of the 
Aleut language (Unangam Tunuu) and from here he “was destined to become one of the 
great luminaries of Russian America. Possessing remarkable intellectual, linguistic, and 
practical skills.” 4 

After settling in Unalaska in the summer of 1824, 

he built a church and a school and began his lifelong task of studying the native languages 
of the region. With the help of the Aleut chief Ivan Pan’kov, Veniaminov invented an 
alphabet for the Unangan language and then used it to compose grammars and translate 
the Gospel of St. Matthew. 5 

Renowned linguist Richard Geoghegan further credits Veniaminov’s achievement of 
bringing the spoken Aleut language to written form. [Veniaminov] “selected appropriate 
characters of the Cyrillic alphabet to represent Aleut speech sounds, recorded the main 
body of Aleut vocabulary and formulated grammatical rules.” 6 




a r r 

A H 

K 

IV 

A M 

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M 

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K 

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M IT c 10 

X 

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T 

b 

t> 10 

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t 

T^hVm* tfwamk* 


fj TU 

Vi 


II. 

MM 


fi ni 

ri 


Ha 

KM 

teti 

#U xx 

A* 


Ca 

(X 

(« (A 

K» IN 



Ta 

TM 

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tv* 

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■nX 


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fK 


fu, rx*' fat r*«4 . rwx , a<*4 . 

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Art, tin, 

AKA, «H, 

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. (XA 

, >xh , (%i 

* (4 A , OT 4 , 

TT*. 

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t auk* . vuU %, am*k», kSk 4 , r4M* , trrni, 

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tU'lf*, TJ*TA r MA . 4*U ,u , 4-Mi -rj-C4• AA . 


( 

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Aleut Primer by Reverend Ioann Veniaminov, 1845, pages 1-2. (Library of Congress, mtfph c0018.) 


604 




Biographies V ♦ Veniaminov 


Fr. Veniaminov’s accomplishment did not happen overnight. His effort began in 
earnest nearly two years after moving to Unalaska, but not until 1846 did then-Bish- 
op Veniaminov publish Opyt Grammatiki Aleutsko-Lisjevskago Jazyka (Essay Toward a 
Grammar of the Fox Island Aleutian Language), “the first tentative grammar and vo¬ 
cabulary of Eastern Aleut.” During the intervening period, Fr. Veniaminov endeavored to 
make vocational use of his efforts. 

In April 1832 Veniaminov took into his service the Aleut translator Semyon Pan’kov, 
probably the son of Ivan Pan’kov, who helped him [in] revising the translation of The 
Gospel according to St. Matthew .. , 8 

The main purpose of this literary activity was of course the teaching of the Gospel rather 
than the preservation of the Aleut language. The meanings of the Aleut words were 
sometimes altered more or less to fit the Russian originals, and important elements of the 
ancient Aleut culture, such as the kinship terminology, were not properly recorded. 9 

However, Fr. Veniaminov’s personal ambitions drove him beyond his focus on written 
words for religious applications. Veniaminov, either knowingly or unknowingly, strove to 
preserve the oral traditions of the Unangan/Unangas culture. 

The first specimens of original Aleut traditions, in Aleut, were collected in the 1830s and 
published by Veniaminov in the 1840s. They comprised twelve Eastern Aleut song texts, 

“collected, written down and translated by the Unalaska interpreter, the Aleut Semyon 
Pan’kov,” and an Atkan song text and two short Atkan tales collected by his “Creole” 
colleague of Atka, Iakov Netsvetov. 10 

Veniaminov’s travels throughout the Aleutian Islands in a baidarka 11 and larger craft 
collecting ethnographic and natural science material resulted in other publications in 
the Aleut and Tlingit (Kolosh) languages, as well as his historically important Zapiski ob 
ostrovakh Unalashkinskago otdeyla (Notes on the Islands of the Unalashka District), pub¬ 
lished in Russian in 1840. Natural scientist William H. Dali credited Veniaminov for being 
the first to record weather conditions in Alaska. 12 Veniaminov’s academic credentials, his 
love of Russian America, and the Natives’ love of him propelled Fr. Veniaminov to higher 
ecclesiastical levels. 

Ivan Veniaminov served as Russian Orthodox priest at Unalaska during 1824-34. In 
1827, or nearly three years after settling in at Unalaska, 

Veniaminov made his first pastoral call at the Pribylov Islands. He praised the islanders 
as industrious, devout and intelligent. The islands’ creole manager Kas’ian Shaiashnikov 
became a friend and supplied details about fur-seal management, which Veniaminov later 
included in his book on the Unalaska district. 13 

Subsequently, he served as archpriest at Sitka from 1834 to 1838. 14 

While on a trip to St. Petersburg in 1839 to plead for support of the church in Alaska, he 
learned of his wife’s death. At first reluctant to return to America, Veniaminov in 1840 
was made bishop of the newly created diocese of Kamchatka, the Kuril Islands, and the 
Aleutians, which he administered from New Archangel, and [was]given the monastic name 
Innokentii [Innocent]. Revered as a religious leader throughout] Russia, Innokentii was 
elected metropolitan of Moscow in 1868. From there he supervised the Russian Imperial 
Missionary Society, which continued its work in Alaska until the 1917 Revolution. In 1977 
Innokentii was proclaimed a saint by the Orthodox Church in America. 15 


605 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


Historians recognize Veniaminov for his important Notes, which includes the first 
historical account of the Seal Islands. Notes was originally published at St. Petersburg, 
Russia in three volumes. 16 In 1896, self-proclaimed expert on Alaska, Henry Wood Elliott, 
praised Veniaminov’s Notes: 

This work of Bishop Innocent Veniaminov is the only one which the Russians can lay 
claim to as exhibiting anything like a history of western Alaska, or of giving a sketch 
of its inhabitants and resources that has the least merit of truth or the faintest stamp 
of reality. Without it we should be simply in the dark as to much of what the Russians 
were about during the whole period of their occupation and possession of that country. 

He served, chiefly as a priest and missionary, for twenty-five years, from 1814-1839, at 
Unalaska, having the seal islands in his parish, and was made bishop of all Alaska. He 
was soon after recalled to Russia, where he became the primate of the national church, 
ranking second to no man in the Empire, save the Czar. He must have been a man of fine 
personal appearance, judging from the following description of him noted by Sir George 
Simpson, who met him at Sitka in 1842, just as he was about to embark for Russia: “His 
appearance, to which I have already alluded, impresses a stranger with something of awe, 
while in further intercourse, the gentleness which characterizes his every work and deed 
insensibly molds reverence with love; and, at the same time, his talents and attainments 
are such as to be worthy of his exalted station. With all this, the bishop is sufficiently a man 
of the world to disdain anything like cant. His conversation, on the contrary, teems with 
amusement and instruction, and his company is much prized by all who have the honor of 
his acquaintance.” Such is the portrait drawn of him by Governor Simpson of the Hudson 
Bay Company. 17 

Linguist Richard Geoghegan initiated a translation of Veniaminnov’s Notes into 
English, which Dr. Lydia Black completed and published in 1984. It remains an authority 
on extant cultural and natural history conditions during the early contact period in the 
Aleutians and Pribilof Islands. 


Volkov, Phillip (1820-ciRCA 1887) 

Resident, St. Paul Island 

Phillip Volkov was apparently well respected by the Amerikansk (white Americans) 
on St. Paul Island. The St. Paul Island Agent’s Log for November 26, 1875, offered the fol¬ 
lowing commentary regarding Volkov’s fifty-fifth birthday (name day) celebration: 

Today being faithful Philip Volcoff’s namesday (55 years past) we were invited to his home 
at V 2 past eleven a.m. where we were treated in a substantial manner to three courses of 
good food and two of good drink the last being chi (tea). The following filled the table: C. P. 

Fish, Hamden McIntyre, B. G. McIntyre, Dr. D. R. Meany, George Marston. 18 

Seal Islands expert Henry Wood Elliott introduced the following quote from Phillip 
Volkov as “the view expressed to the writer by one of the oldest and most intelligent of 
the people.” 

I do not have any objection to the attendance of my children, nor have my neighbors to that 
of theirs, on your (English) school; but if our boys and young men neglect their Russian 
lessons, who is going to take our places when we die, in our church, at our christenings, 
and at our burials? 19 

The St. Paul Island census for 1887 recorded Philip Volkov as having passed away. 20 


606 




Biographies V ♦ Veniaminov - Voznesenskii 


Voss, Otto (d. 1897) 

Resident Physician, St. Paul Island, North American Commercial Company, 1892-1897 
Genealogy 

Otto Voss died and was buried on St. Paul Island in 1897. 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

St. Paul Island Treasury Agent-in-Charge Joseph Murray recounted the horrific acciden¬ 
tal death of Dr. Voss: 


Thursday, August 26, 1897 

It becomes my painful duty to record the death of Dr. Otto Voss—the saddest event that 
has ever taken place on the Seal Islands! Full of animation, energy and enthusiasm, he was 
snatched out of existence so suddenly that I can scarcely realize the fact that he was talking 
to me, so joyously, only four short hours ago! 

We had been together nearly all the day, planning alterations and improvements, 
and directing the native men how to make them; we left the Office of the Company, 
accompanied by the Carpenter, Aggie Kushin, to whom Dr. Voss had been showing the 
plan for a new stairs; and for whom he now proposed to walk down to the lumber pile, at 
the Point Warehouse to pick out the necessary lumber for the stairs. 

While the long 2x12 planks were being loaded the doctor stepped into the wagon to assist 
in raising the end of the plank to the top of the dash-board, and two planks were thus 
loaded when the mules took fright and ran away. 

They followed the train road running along before the first row of native’s dwellings, and, as 
the wagon ascended the rising ground, the two planks slipped out, and off, and fell on the 
ground. As soon as the planks disappeared from the mules view they slowed down to an 
ordinarily slow trot and it appeared the trouble was at an end; but suddenly, the doctor was 
seen to step out over the dash board, and out on to the wagon tongue, in order to recover 
one of the lines which had been broken, when, just as suddenly, the team appeared to take 
another fright, for they turned and dashed off the road and ran down the incline at a terrific 
speed. For a moment the doctor was seen running on the ground, but between the wagon 
and the team, and inside the double-trees; and there he fell where we found him. 21 


Voznesenskii, Il’la Gavrilovich (1816-1871) 

Naturalist, Ethnologist, and Artist, Pribilof Islands, 1843-1844 
Pribilof Islands Experience 

During the spring and fall of 1843 and in August of 1844, Il’la Voznesenskii visited 
the Pribilof Islands, where he made observations and illustrations of the St. Paul and 
St. George village settings. The drawings were done in both pencil and India ink. 22 
Voznesenskii’s artworks remain in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, St. 
Petersburg, Russia. 23 


607 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


1 Ioann or Ivan is also translated as “John.” 

2 Ivan Veniaminov, Notes on the Islands of the Unalashka District (Zapiski ob ostrovakh 
Unalashkinskago otdeyla ), ed. Richard A. Pierce, trans. Lydia T. Black and R. H. Geoghegan 
(Kingston, ON: Limestone Press, 1984), vi. 

3 Ibid., vii. 

4 “Meeting of Frontiers: Gallery—Father Ioann Veniaminov,” http://memory.loc.gov/intldl/mtfhtml/ 
mfak/igfather.html (accessed Jan. 19, 2006). 

5 Meeting of Frontiers: Gallery—Father Ioann Veniaminov, http://memory.loc.gov/intldl/mtfhtml/ 
mfak/igfather.html (accessed Jan. 19, 2006). Knut Bergsland , Aleut Dictionary (Fairbanks: Univ. of 
Alaska, Alaska Native Language Center, 1994), discusses Veniaminov’s efforts to create a written 
Aleut language (Unangam Tunuu) on pages xxiii-xxiv; Bergsland states that Ivan Pan’kov was an 
Aleut Chief on Tigalda Island among the Krenitzin Island group (pages viii and xxiii), and credits 
Iakov Netsvetov, the Atkan priest born and raised on St. George Island, with providing capable 
linguistic assistance to Veniaminov; Waldemar Jochelson, Unangam Ungiikangin Kayux Tunusangin 
= Unangam Uniikangis Ama Tunuzangis = Aleut Tales and Narratives, Collected in 1909-1910, ed. 
Knut Bergsland and Moses L. Dirks (Fairbanks: Univ. of Alaska, Alaska Native Language Center, 
1990), 7, noted that translation assistance was provided by Aleut Semyon Pan’kov and Atkan Creole, 
Iakov Netsvetov; and William H. Dali, Alaska and Its Resources (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1870), 
334, commented “the noble and devoted missionary [Veniaminov], was sent to Unalaska and began 
his labors among the Aleuts, 1824.” 

6 Ivan Veniaminov, The Aleut Language, ed. Fredericka I. Martin, trans. Richard H. Geoghegan 
(Washington, DC: GPO, 1944), 1. 

7 Bergsland, Aleut Dictionary, viii and xxiii. Veniaminov’s Opyt Grammatik Aleutsko-Lisjevskago 
Jazyka [Essay Toward a Grammar of the Fox Island Aleutian Language] (St. Petersburg, publisher 
unkown,1834) source of Veniaminov’s publication derived from Jay Ellis Ransom, “Aleut Linguistic 
Perspective,” Southwestern J. of Anthropology, vol. 2, no. 1 (1946): 48-55. 

8 Bergsland, Aleut Dictionary, xxiii. 

9 Ibid., viii. 

10 Waldemar Jochelson, Unangam Ungiikangin Kayux Tunusangin, 7. 

11 Richard A. Pierce, Russian America: A Biographical Dictionary (Kingston, ON and Fairbanks: 
Limestone Press, 1990), 522, writes briefly of Veniaminov’s travels in a baidarka through all types of 
weather. 

12 Dali, Alaska and Its Resources, 444-5; and Pierce, Russian America, 522, who qualified that 
Veniaminov kept weather records for seven of his ten years while stationed in Unalaska. 

13 Pierce, Russian America, 522. Pierce provides a more in-depth account of Veniaminov’s life. 

14 Pierce, Russian America, 522-7; and Dorothy M. Jones and John R. Wood, An Aleut Bibliography 
(Fairbanks: Univ. of Alaska, Institute of Social, Economic, and Government Research, 1975), p. 11-87. 

15 “Meeting of Frontiers: Gallery—Father Ioann Veniaminov,” http://memory.loc.gov/intldl/mtfhtml/ 
mfak/igfather.html (accessed Jan. 19, 2006). 

16 Jones and Wood, An Aleut Bibliography, state that Veniaminov’s written work was comprised 
of three volumes. The first volume focused on geology and biology of the Aleutians. The second 
volume contained his ethnographic notes about the Aleut, as did the third volume, which also in¬ 
cluded commentaries about the Tlingits. 

17 Henry Wood Elliott, Report of Henry W. Elliott on the Condition of the Fur-Seal Fisheries of Alaska, 
Together with all Maps and Illustrations accompanying said Report in U.S. Congress, House, 54th 
Cong., 1st sess., H. Doc. no. 175 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1896), 22. 

18 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1872-76, 368. The Aleuts (and others of the Russian Orthodox faith) 
celebrate birthdays or “name days” on the day that honors the saint for whom they were named. 

19 Henry Wood Elliott, A Report Upon the Condition of Affairs in the Territory of Alaska (Washington, 
DC: GPO, 1875), 99. 

20 Betty A. Lindsay and John A. Lindsay, Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Genealogy and Census, NOAA Tech. 
Memo. NOS ORR 18 (2009), 183. 

21 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1897, 185-8. Agent Murray was obviously greatly upset by the death of 
Dr. Voss, as he recorded the same details of the accident in the agent’s log for Aug. 26 and 27. 


608 




Biographies V ♦ Notes 


22 E. E. Blomkvist, "A Russian Scientific Expedition to California and Alaska, 1839-1849: The Drawings 
of I. G. Voznesenskii, trans. Basil Dmytryshyn and E. A. P. Crownhart-Vaughan, Oregon Historical 
Quarterly 73, no. 2 (1972): 101-70 (originally published in Collections of Museum of Anthropology 
and Ethnography, vol. 13, 1951); and Pierce, Russian America, 534-6. 

23 Blomkvist, A Russian Scientific Expedition,” 102; and Katerina G. Solovjova and Aleksandra A. 
Vovnyanko, The Fur Rush (Anchorage: Phenix, 2002), 316, under “Blomkvist, E. E. 1951.” 



. ./ 

View of St. George settlement from North Rookery, showing the church and other buildings and 
barabaras. Also shown are the landing with flanking cliffs, a ship under full sail at left, and fur seals 
at bottom right. Pencil sketch by II’ia Gavrilovich Voznesenskii. (Courtesy Peter the Great Museum of 
Anthropology and Ethnography, 1142-24.) 


609 







Ki » 16 . 



610 


View of the St. Paul settlement from the top of Village Hill showing the church and administrator’s quarters on hill at right, and barabaras below. Also 
shown at left are piles of sealskins stretched on the ground to dry, racks for drying fish and meat, and several Aleut men working. Pencil sketch by Il’ia 
Gavrilovich Voznesenskii. (Courtesy Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, 1142-8.) 































Wardman, George W. ( 1838 - 1914 ) 

Assistant Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. George Island, May 1881-Spring 
1885 

Writer, Journalist and Newspaper Editor 
Genealogy 

George W. Wardman was born April 8 , 1838, at Buffalo, Erie County, New York, the son 
of William Wardman from Yorkshire, England, and Jane (Martin) Wardman, a native of 
Dublin, Ireland. George’s parents married in Canada and immigrated to Buffalo, where 
their four children were born. George was the eldest; the others were Edward Jacob 
Wardman, born March 24, 1844; Henry Benjamin Wardman, born August 12, 1846; and 
Jane Wardman, born July 1848. William Wardman died in 1848 at Buffalo, and his widow, 
Jane Wardman, married Thomas O’Brian, born about 1828 in Ireland. Widowed again, 
Jane (Martin) Wardman O’Brian passed away in Buffalo on April 12, 1882. 

George W. Wardman was married on September 29, 1865, at Idaho City, Territory of 
Idaho, to Mary Virginia Ervin, born at New Orleans, Louisiana, January 22, 1854. She was 
the daughter of William C. Ervin and Catherine (maiden name not found) Ervin, both 
Pennsylvania natives. George and Mary had two sons, John Ervin and George Benjamin. 
The U.S. Census of 1870 in South Pass City, Wyoming listed John E. Wardman, but as an 
adult he went through life known as “Ervin.” 

The older son, John Ervin Wardman, was born December 25, 1865, at Salt Lake City, 
Utah, and died Jan. 13, 1923, at White Plains, New York. Ervin was married twice in 
New York City, first to Caroline Klink Eyre on May 14, 1902, and after Caroline’s death 
in 1908 to Violet Boyer of Barrie, Ontario, Canada, on February 8 , 1910. Ervin and Violet 
had one son, George Ervin Wardman, who married Elfrida L. Smith, daughter of Alfred 


611 



Pribilof Islands: The People 

Blackburn Smith of Harmony Hall, Warick, 
Bermuda, on November 11, 1936, on the island 
of Bermuda. 

Younger son George Benjamin Wardman 
was born April 21, 1869, at Cheyenne, Wyoming. 
He was married in California on June 1, 1898, 
to Emily Alice Wringrose, born June 24, 1873, 
at Northampton, England. George B. Wardman 
died January 2, 1951, in Los Angeles, California. 

George W. Wardman died of tuberculosis at 
Monrovia, Los Angeles County, California, on 
April 22, 1914, and was interred at San Gabriel, 
California, on April 24, 1914. 1 

Biographical Sketch 

George W. Wardman lived as a youngster in the 
Black Rock District of Buffalo, New York, just off 
the Niagara River. An 1862 gold strike at Idaho 
City was reputed to have delivered 250 mil¬ 
lion dollars in gold—more than either the 1849 
California or the 1898 Klondike gold strikes. 2 As 
gold fever struck thousands of people and rail¬ 
roads expanded west, Wardman set out to seek a share of the nation’s newly discovered 
wealth. First, he ventured to Idaho City in the Boise basin of Idaho, where he married 
Mary Ervin in 1865. The couple moved to Salt Lake City the same year. In 1868, they 
moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where his brother, Henry B. Wardman, a tinsmith, joined 
him. 3 In Cheyenne, George W. Wardman worked as a journalist and associate editor for 
the Cheyenne Daily Leader. 4 

Large gold deposits had been struck at South Pass City, Wyoming, in 1867. 

Gold seekers settled on Willow Creek in 1867. The camp soon became a town, and the 
town became the largest in the state. Named South Pass City, it grew quickly. Within 
eighteen months, its population exceeded two thousand. What should have been a curly- 
haired, short-tempered saloon town became, instead, a family community. Those miners 
with wives and children, seeking a safe home, chose this town rather than Atlantic City, 
located five miles east. The women were quick to organize and preserve this precious 
quality. Some say organization was hastened by the several long meetings held during the 
Indian raids. Hostiles frequently threatened the town, driving off the stock and stealing 
whatever was unguarded. During the raids, the women and children were locked in a cave¬ 
like recess behind the wine celler [sic passim] owned by a local merchant. The celler was 
protected by a stout iron door. Many a decision was made in the darkness of this hideaway. 5 

In April 1869, George and Henry moved to South Pass City and that fall, on October 
4, the brothers became claim holders in the “South Pass City Lode.” 6 They also opened a 
hardware store specializing in tin ware. 7 



HENRY I! WARDMAN 


Henry Wardman, brother of George 
Wardman. The two ran Wardman 
Brothers, a tin and hardware business 
in South Pass, Wyoming. (George W. 
Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory, 
vol. 5, 1915, 421.) 


612 









Biographies W ♦ Wardman 


George W. Wardman’s father-in-law, 
William C. Ervin, was a hardware mer¬ 
chant who had ventured west from New 
Orleans after his daughter, Mary Virginia, 
was born. William Ervin settled first in 
California, where the 1860 U.S. Census 
recorded him operating his first hard¬ 
ware store in Los Angeles. He then sold 
wares and groceries to miners in the new 
Wyoming Territory, first in Cheyenne, 
next Bryan, and then at South Pass City, 
where in 1868 he built the Idaho House 
Hotel. In 1869, he renamed it the South 
Pass Hotel. 8 

In 1869, Democrat George Wardman, 
by then a well-recognized journalist, was 
elected as the representative of Carter 
County (later renamed Sweetwater) to 
the Wyoming Territory Council. 9 


pg- Quite a number of our citzens are f " 
now oat prospecting, among whotn are 
*Cha J g Sickter, Geo*. YggfWQLt 8 
Burbridge, aud others, We hope they 
‘will have abundant success, 

Notice of local mining news in South Pass, 
Wyoming. (South Pass News, April 9, 1870.) 


WARDMAN BROS., 

EEALKKS IN 

Tin and Hardware, 

SOUTH PASS, WYOMING. 

Every dc-seription of tin wnt k done 
erder n itf 


Newspaper advertisement for the Wardman 
Brothers’ tin and hardware business in South Pass, 
Wyoming. (South Pass News, April 9, 1870.) 


Once the gold fever died, Wardman left the West for the steel-producing city of 
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he established himself as a newspaper man. The Pittsburgh 
City Directories listed him in 1876 as a resident of that city and editor of the Evening 
Leader, in 1877-90, as editor of the Dispatch, and in 1890-97, editor of the Pittsburgh 
Press. 10 In 1879, Wardman traveled to Alaska as a journalist. During the period 1881-85, 
he was assistant agent for the Department of the Treasury on St. George Island; afterward 
he went back to Pittsburgh. In 1898, Wardman sold his holdings in the Pittsburgh Press 
and returned to the West as a writer, settling in Eddy, New Mexico. 11 Within the next 
decade, he moved to California to live closer to his son George Benjamin, of San Marino, 
California. 12 He spent his final days in the San Gabriel Valley at Monrovia, California, 
where he died in 1914. 13 


Besides working as a news editor, Wardman published A Trip to Alaska: A Narrative, 
“Folk-Lore Scrap-Book,” in Journal of American Folklore, and “The Fuel of the Future,” in 
Scientific American Supplement. 

Wardman’s son John Ervin followed in his father’s footsteps and became a journal¬ 
ist. He was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire, and gradu¬ 
ated from Harvard University with an AB degree in 1888. John Ervin, more commonly 
known as Ervin, worked as a writer in New York City, then began as staff editor and 
rose to editor-in-chief at the New York Tribune, 1888-1895. He was editor at the New 
York Press, 1895-1916; editor at the New York Herald, 1920-1923; and finally publisher 
of the Sun-Herald, 1920-1923. Ervin Wardman fathered the phrase “yellow journalism” 
in 1897 with his attacks against news publishers William Randolph Hearst and Joseph 
Pulitzer, 14 whom Ervin alleged resorted to sensationalism to attract readers. 15 John Ervin 


613 










Pribilof Islands: The People 


Wardman’s son, George Ervin Wardman, settled in Bermuda, where he acquired real 
estate including elegant hotels; Ervin’s grandson, George Alfred Wardman, continues to 
operate those establishments. 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Assistant Agent George Wardman (1881-1885) preceded Assistant Agent William Gavitt 
(1887-1888) on St. George Island by two years. Nonetheless, when the Congressional 
Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries convened an investigation of the Seal 
Islands in 1888, it called Wardman to testify as to his knowledge of the character of Alaska 
Commercial Company agents accused by Agent Gavitt of improprieties against Natives 
and non-Natives during Gavitt’s tenure on the island (see William Gavitt biography). A 
New York Times article presented Wardman’s position: 

George Wardman, who was a special agent at the island of St. George from 1881 to 1884 
[should have stated 1885] said he never knew a woman or a girl upon the island that was 
assaulted, or a man or a boy to be abused by any of the company’s agents; nor did he 
ever know of a native woman living in the company’s house with one of the employees. 

Regarding Webster, [the] witness said he was a querulous, dyspeptic old man, with whom 
he had had one minor difficulty. He never saw anything which would lead him to believe 
that the company’s house was converted into a house of ill repute. 16 

George Wardman wrote of his impressions of the Pribilof Islands in an article, “The 
Seal Islands of Alaska,” published in The Overland Monthly in 1883, 17 and the next year in 
his book A Trip to Alaska about his 1879 trip, excerpted here. 

In the summer of 1879, the writer obtained permission from Hon. John Sherman, at 
that time Secretary of the Treasury, to proceed in the United States revenue steamer 
“Richard Rush,” captain [sic] Bailey, on her cruise from San Francisco to Sitka, the Fur Seal 
Islands, the Sea Otter Grounds, and other points in Alaskan waters. The voyage proved 
exceedingly interesting, and the author gave an account of what he saw and heard to certain 
newspapers, in a desultory way, but he has been led to believe that his observations may be 
read in a more permanent form with interest, and he hopes with profit, by those who may 
be in search of information concerning Alaska. 18 

The natives of St. Paul’s and St. George’s Islands live in a sort of communistic state, and are, 
withal, purse-proud aristocrats. They perform a few days’ labor for the company outside 
of seal-taking, for which they are paid at the rate of ten cents per hour. All earnings for 
killing seals are distributed pro rata in classes, not only to those who work according to 
their ability, but to some who are unable to perform any labor. They are not frugal in their 
habits. They spend the greater part of their money on luxuries. Having house rent, fuel, 
fish and seal meat, doctor and school-master free, they look around for something to buy. 

For the one hundred and twenty women on one island the company carried up a hundred 
dozen fine silk handkerchiefs, which are generally worn on the head, a hundred dozen 
fine worsted colored stockings, almost as many scarfs [sic] and nubias [sic], dozens of fine 
shawls, one thousand two hundred yards of calico (some of these seal-killers’ wives have a 
dozen dresses at a time), three hundred yards of other dress goods and flannels, with three 
suits of clothing, boots, and caps for every man and boy in the village, and good cassimere 
[sic] clothing is the kind they demand. 

For food supplies on one island they have thirty-five thousand pounds of biscuit and 
crackers and two hundred and thirty barrels of flour; seventy chests of tea, fifty-two pounds 
each; four hundred boxes candles, stearine [sic] and paraffine; one thousand sacks of rice, 
fifty pounds each; one thousand gallons kerosene, etc. 


614 





Biographies W ♦ Wardman 


A few years ago these same natives lived in barabaras (sod huts), twenty-five to forty 
persons in one room. They used blubber for lights and fuel till the lampblack hung in 
strings from the ceiling. Now they have frame houses, cook-stoves, coal, kerosene, and 
paraffine candles. They have good church buildings on each island, and schools with 
teachers as well as doctors, at the expense of the company. 

The natives of the seal islands are not long lived. Sixty is old age, to which few ever reach, 
and even those of fifty are scarce. The population has not increased to any appreciable 
extent since the United States came into possession. 

Like all other Aleuts, the natives of the seal islands die generally of consumption. When it 
once appears it makes rapid work, and in a few days its victim is laid away. Whatever may 
be the restorative qualities of fish-oil blubber, it does not seem to benefit these people. 

They all eat enormously of these commodities, and, as a rule, die early. When attacked, 
physicians are in vain, and the patient falls at once into a condition of hopeless indifference, 
generally refusing medicine, or neglecting to take it during the doctor’s absence. 

These people give liberally toward the support of their church, and buy many blessed 
candles at high prices. The church decorations of silver chandeliers, candelabras, and 
pictures are both elaborate and expensive. Large gilt candles have been sent from the San 
Francisco Consistory at the rate of three for fifty dollars, and, though this was considered 
high, they were paid for. They were large candles, it is true, but, judging from the material 
of which they are composed, they should not cost more than four or five dollars each, even 
including the rather tawdry gilding upon their surfaces. But the seal-islanders believe in 
blessed candles and can afford to pay for them. 

The “second” priest, or “striker,” as he is sometimes denominated by irreverent Yankees, 
the “second mate,” as the sailors call him, is an institution of the Russian Church in Alaska. 
The second priest can hold services, but is not endowed with the right to perform the 
marriage ceremony. He leads the choir and attends on the first priest at mass. Sometimes 
the marriage ceremony is waived by parties entering into the marital state in the absence 
of a first priest, but when that individual comes around, he makes it all right, and it is 
considered that no harm has been done. 

The vestments worn by the priest are very rich, but sometimes when he appears in garment 
of gold and white, with cavalry boots below, as often happens, the effect strikes strangers 
as being strong and novel rather than strictly ecclesiastic. It speaks somewhat loudly of 
church militant. 

There is no beer nor whiskey to be had by the natives of the fur-seal islands. The Treasury 
Department forbids the manufacture here or the introduction of beverages of an 
intoxicating character. Efforts have been made in other Aleutian settlements to prevent the 
manufacture of “quass,” a sort of sour beer manufactured out of sugar, flour, and water; but 
where there are two or more trading companies in competition, the sugar can be obtained 
from one, if not from the other, and the suppression of the traffic in such a community is 
almost impossible. On the fur-seal islands, however, Treasury and company agents unite 
in efforts to suppress the manufacture of strong drink. It was, for a long time, difficult 
to reconcile these Aleuts to getting along without spirits. Under Russian rule it was the 
custom to issue spirits to the men when at work, and this created an appetite, which was 
sought to be allayed by other drink when merchantable whiskey could not be had.... 

Tea is now the strongest beverage that these people absorb. The tea used here is of a 
superior quality, the same chop as that furnished by the Russians years and years ago. The 
people don’t want any other kind, and the company is perfectly willing to provide that 
which they prefer. 

The seal islands are situated in Behring Sea, and during the warmer months are almost 
continually enveloped in fogs and mist. This is one reason why the seals make them their 
breeding grounds. There is no such thing in the seal business as “making hay while the 
sun shines,” for the sun will drive the warm-coated animals into the water, when men with 


615 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


clubs could not do it; for though the two and four-year-olds may be herded and driven like 
sheep, the older bulls, when on the rookeries, cannot be forced away by threats of violence. 
Continued sunshine, however, would soon banish them from the islands. 

St. George’s Island which, on a clear day, can be seen from St. Paul’s, is an epitome of the 
larger one. The population, at the last count, was one hundred and two persons. They have 
a church, school-house, and frame dwellings for the people provided by the company, 
which controls in all these matters and furnishes the modern improvements according to 
the ideas of its officers, whose suggestions in these matters are adopted. 

Near Garden Cove, on the southeast coast of St. George’s Island, is a large sea-lion rookery, 
the beach being red with the monsters, which lay packed together like hogs in a stock car 
going to market. The sea lion is found also on St. Paul’s, but not so numerously as on St. 
George’s. The sea lion seems to be more like an overgrown seal, larger than the fur-seal 
bulls, but their coat consists of hair only, which is of a coarse reddish brown. The flesh of 
the sea lion is preferred to that of the fur seal, and the hide, while having no value in the 
markets of the world, is in great demand among the Aleuts and Indians of the Northern 
Pacific and Behring Sea. The leather is, however, used to a limited extent on emery wheels 
for polishing in cutlery factories. 

The flippers of the sea lion are used for soles of the Aleut waterproof boots; the skin is 
converted into coverings for the large open boats known as “bidarras.” These boats consist 
of a frame of wood with ribs imported from the Eastern States. The lion skins, the hair 
shaved off, are stretched over the frame, fifteen or twenty being sewed together, and when 
dry they are as tight as a drum. These boats are constructed about forty feet in length and 
ten or twelve feet beam, with a carrying capacity of from two to four tons. 

The bidarra is the favorite craft with the seal islanders as the two-hole bidarkie is with the 
Western Aleuts, the three-holed with the Kadiackers, and the fifty-foot cedar dugouts with 
the Hyda Indians.... 

Sea Otter Island, lying about five miles southwardly from St. Paul’s, is another landing- 
place for the fur seal, but only to a limited extent. Owing to the fact that it is not 
permanently inhabited, some marauders were in the habit of landing on the opposite 
side, where they could not be seen from St. Paul’s, and killing whatever seal they could 
find, without regard to sex, age, or condition. The company reported these facts to the 
Secretary of the Treasury, who decided that the intention of the act under which the lease 
was authorized appeared to be to give all the islands of the group to the lessees, for the 
regulation of the traffic and preservation of the fur seal. Then, as the company could not 
defend Sea Otter Island, the Government was asked to do so, and now the practice is to 
leave a revenue marine guard there during the sealing season. 

Sea Otter Island is famous for sea fowls’ eggs, and also for foxes, [the] latter [of which] so 
infest the place that a former revenue marine officer experienced great difficulty in keeping 
the pests from destroying everything destroyable in his cabin. Birds’ eggs, buried beneath 
the floor were ravished by these cunning animals, which, during the officer’s absence, dug 
under the walls and made their way into the house. They are principally blue foxes, such as 
are found on St. Paul’s and St. George’s. 

There is one more, Walrus Island, in the Prybilov group, about six miles eastward from St. 
Paul, to which male walruses resort in considerable numbers each year. It is also famous for 
sea fowl, which resort thither in countless millions for breeding purposes. But no fur seals 
are killed by the lessees upon either Otter or Walrus islands. 

As only natives may be employed to kill the seals, no whites are permitted to remain 
upon the Prybilov Islands unless either in the service of the United States or of the Alaska 
Commercial Company—except the Russian priests. 19 


616 




Biographies W ♦ Wardman - Washburn 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

George Wardman deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration before Notary Public Charles 
L. Hughes at Washington, D.C., on April 26, 1892. The following is an excerpt from his 
deposition. 

I am George Wardman ... of Pittsburg [sic], Pennsylvania.... I am 50 years of age, 
and editor of the Pittsburgh Press. In 1879 as a journalist I made a trip to Alaska on the 
United States revenue steamer Rush during her summer cruise. On that trip I stopped at 
many points along the northwest coast, the Alaskan coast, and the Aleutian chain, and 
also visited the Pribilof Islands and St. Michael, going as far north as Bering Straits. On 
April 4, 1881,1 was appointed Assistant Special Treasury Agent for the Seal Islands, and 
immediately after such appointment proceeded to San Francisco and sailed for the islands, 
arriving there in the latter part of May. I was then detailed by Colonel [Harrison] Otis, 

Special Treasury Agent for the Seal Islands, to the Island of St. George, and until May 29, 

1885,1 remained in charge of that Island. 20 


Washburn, Seth Monroe ( 1849 - 1942 ) 

Assistant Agent and Teacher, Alaska Commercial Company, 1874-1877 
Genealogy 

Seth Monroe Washburn was born May 23,1849, in Randolph, Vermont, to Levi Washburn 
and Prudentia (Flint) Washburn. 21 

Biographical Sketch 

Seth returned from Alaska and joined his father-in-law in a dry goods and general mer¬ 
chandise business in Bethel, Vermont. He became a partner and the store became Brooks 
and Washburn. 22 

Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Seth Washburn deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration before Notary Public Guy Wilson 
at Bethel, Vermont, on June 13, 1892. The following is an excerpt from his deposition. 

I am 42 years of age, and reside in Bethel, Vermont, where I have been a merchant since 
1878.1 was born in Randolph, Vermont, and lived there until 1874.1 was a graduate of the 
State Normal School of Vermont, and in 1874 was employed by the Alaska Commercial 
Company ... as Assistant Agent and teacher. I went there in 1874 and remained 
continuously until 1877, my residence there covering four sealing seasons. 23 


617 









Pribilof Islands: The People 


Webster, Daniel ( 1832 - 1900 ) 

Agent, Alaska Commercial Company, 1870-1890 
Agent, North American Commercial Company, 1890-1900 

Genealogy 

Daniel Webster was born at New London, Connecticut, in April 1832. In about 1859, after 
Webster had been a whaler for fourteen years, he married Emma Bailey (1841-1901) at 
New London. Emma was the daughter of shoemaker Charles W. Bailey and Elizabeth 
Bailey. Emma’s brother Charles Jr. was also a whaler. Daniel and Emma had a son, George, 
who died shortly after his birth in April 1860 in New London. In January 1862, another 
son was born whom they also named George, but with the middle name of Payne. The 
Webster family spent summers on the Pribilof Islands during George’s early years, as 
noted in the Agent’s Log, which listed arrivals to the island: “Wednesday, May 28, 1873, 
arrive at St. Paul, Daniel Webster, wife and son George.” 

Daniel Webster died in June 1900 on St. George Island during a three-week epidemic 
of la gripped Emma Webster was living in Oakland, California, at the time, with son 
George (1862-1953), George’s first wife, Ida B. Williams Webster, and their daughter, 
Gladys, plus George’s mother-in-law, Harriet Williams. Emma Webster died the next 
year, on August 27, 1901, in Oakland. George Payne Webster became a well-known actor 
in the San Francisco theater and lived to be 91 years of age. His daughter, Gladys, re¬ 
mained single and followed her father into show business as an actress and a teacher of 
theater arts. 25 

Biographical Sketch 

At the age of fourteen, Daniel Webster ventured to sea as a “whale-man.” He testified that 
he spent twenty-three years in the Bering Sea and the North Pacific as a whaler. 26 


Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

Daniel Webster deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration before Treasury Agent-in-Charge 
William H. Williams at St. George Island, Alaska, on June 11, 1892. The following is an 
excerpt from his deposition. 

I am 60 years of age, and am a resident of Oakland, Cal; my occupation is that of local 
agent for the North American Commercial Company, and at present I am stationed on 
St. George Island, of the Pribilof Group, Alaska. I have been in Alaskan waters every year 
but two since I was fourteen years of age. I first went to Behring Sea in 1845 on a whaling 
voyage, and annually visited those waters in that pursuit until 1868, at which time the 
purchase and transfer of Alaska was made to the United States; since that time I have been 
engaged in the taking of fur seals for their skins. In 1870 I entered the employ of the lessees 
of the Pribilof Islands and have been so engaged ever since, and for the last thirteen years 
have been the company’s local agent on St. George Island, and during the sealing season 
have, a part of the time, gone to St. Paul Island and took charge of the killing at Northeast 
Point, which is known to be the largest fur seal rookery in the world. For ten years prior 
to 1878 I resided most of the time at Northeast Point, having landed and taken seals there 
in 1868.1 have had twenty-four years’ experience in the fur-seal industry as it exists in the 
waters of the North Pacific and Behring Sea. 27 


618 







Biographies W ♦ Webster 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

Daniel Webster went to the Pribilofs from the whaling center of New London, Connecticut. 
The whaling fleet at New Bedford, Massachusetts, is better known, but New London’s fleet 
was smaller by only one vessel. 28 “Webster came ashore on St. Paul Island in the spring 
(April) of 1868, an employee of Williams and Havens, of New London, Connecticut. He 
took charge of the sealing then begun on behalf of this firm at Novastoshna(h) or North 
East Point. Hutchinson, Kohl and Co. had the only other party up there at that time. This 
was the first irregular sealing ever done upon this island since 1804. 

“Webster said that H. I<. and Co. and he took over 75,000 young male seals at N. E. 
Point alone, that summer of 1868, and only stopped work from sheer exhaustion of their 
men, who were not only physically “used up,” but also they had used up all their salt and 
had no suitable means left of saving any more skins.” 29 

Webster’s travels as a whaler probably brought many opportunities to acquire valu¬ 
able goods and may be how Webster acquired a ruby ring and the ivory-tipped cane that, 
according to local Pribilof lore, he always carried. 

He is said to have had the respect of the Aleuts, even though he was occasionally 
gruff. Assistant Agent William Gavitt accused Webster and others of gross misconduct 
during Gavitt’s time on St. George, 1887-1888, accusations that led to a Congressional 
investigation. Numerous individuals testified before the Congressional committee, and 
nearly all of those who mentioned Webster spoke kindly of him. 50 



Daniel Webster with walking cane on a warehouse porch; Alex Hanson stacking seal skins in wagon, St. 
Paul Island. (NAA, Joseph Stanley-Brown Lantern Slide Coll., lot 54-368.) 


619 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


Former Assistant Treasury Agent George Wardman reflected upon Webster’s char¬ 
acter over the course of his testimony before the Committee on Merchant Marine and 
Fisheries in 1888: 

Mr. Webster is an old “shell-back,” a white headed old man. He was an old whaler. He had 
been whaling up in the Ochotsk [sic] Sea and in the Arctic Sea before the United States 
acquired Alaska. I think he was in the Arctic Sea in 1854.... He was a quarrelsome old 
man. I never had any trouble with Mr. Webster. If I found him growling, I would turn him 
and give him a “bluff.” 

... when I wanted to seize the schooner Alexander, and had left Mr. Kirk aboard till I 
talked with Webster. I would not seize her formally unless Webster would take her, because 
I did not want her to go on the rocks there. There was no harbor. I went ashore and told 
Mr. Webster that if he would take her over to the other island [St. Paul] or down to San 
Francisco and deliver her to the United States marshal, I would seize her. He said he would 
see the Government damned first. He said he had had one experience of that kind and that 
one was sufficient.... 

During the winter there was a good deal of “chaffing” and joking going on between Dr. 

Noyes and Webster. Dr. Noyes used to put hair nets and garters and such things in old man 
Webster’s bed—he used to slip in there when Webster was out—so that the woman who 
made up the beds would see them, and she would tell all over the village that a woman had 
been sleeping with Mr. Webster. They had great sport out of that. 31 

Daniel Webster was eulogized in the St. Paul Island Agent’s Log soon after word came 
of his death on St. George Island: 

Captain Webster was an old and highly respected resident of Alaska he having lived on the 
Seal Islands almost continuously since American Occupation. 32 


Wentz, Herbert B. 

Physician in Charge, St. George Island, 1946 
Pribilof Islands Experience 

Soon after evacuees were returned to the Pribilofs at the end of WWII, Dr. Herbert Wentz 
wrote about nutritional concerns: 

St. George is a village on an island of the same name, comprising 30 houses for the 
villagers’ 32 families that vary in number from 1 to 14. 

As food—celery, cabbage, lettuce, onions, radishes, turnips, etc., is essential to a well 
balanced diet, and a well balanced diet is urged so that a green house, having a floor space 
of at least 10,000 square feet be erected here as speedily as possible. 

That a green house can be operated here successfully is demonstrated by the green house 
operated by the Agent and the Storekeeper. 33 

The doctor’s recommendation apparently went unheeded on St. George Island. 
During earlier times greenhouses had been successfully used on St. Paul Island, but their 
yield was primarily for the government employees and the island’s priest. 


620 






Greenhouse located on Sandy Lane with six-car garage in background, St. Paul Island, 1946. 
(NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, Administrative Correspondence, ca. 1888-1987, 
RG 22-9S-ADMC-73S.) 



Greenhouse located near the Government House and Priest’s House on Old Village Hill, St. 
Paul Island, circa 1952. (NARA, College Park, MD, 22-RB-1952-33.) 


621 

























Pribilof Islands: The People 


Whitney, Alvin Goodnow 

Schoolteacher, St. Paul Island, 1912-1914 

Genealogy 

Alvin Goodnow Whitney was born March 4, 
1883, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, the son of 
George Plummer Whitney and Carrie (Goodman) 
Whitney. George Whitney worked as a carder. 54 
On July 28, 1912, in Washington, D.C., Alvin 
Whitney married Elsie Julia Gibson, born March 

15, 1885, in Ryegate, Caledonia, Vermont, to 
Albert and Ruth (Brown) Gibson. Alvin Whitney 
died June 19, 1960 in Delmar, Albany, New York, 
where Elsie Whitney died ten years later, January 

16, 1970. 35 

Biographical Sketch 

Alvin Whitney graduated from Dartmouth 
College. He was on the faculty of Syracuse 
University School of Forestry and the University 
of Michigan School of Forestry before becoming assistant director of the New York State 
Museum in Albany. 36 

Whitney’s strong character exhibited itself in the Pribilofs, as discussed below, and 
also afterward, when he found himself accused of sedition. The Syracuse Herald (New 
York) ran a story under a back-page headline, “Alvin G. Whitney, Forestry Instructor 
Held on Charge of Sedition.” He was a thirty-four year-old graduate student at the State 
College of Forestry, Syracuse, New York, when he filled out a U.S. Census form and chal¬ 
lenged the government’s involvement in “The Great War,” now known as World War I. 
Whitney reportedly stated on the form that he was claiming “an exemption from mil¬ 
itary duty because he was unwilling to assist the state or national government in the 
present dishonorable war.” He told reporters, “I am conscientiously opposed to all war. 
I thought that every one in this country had the right of free speech and of expressing 
an opinion according to his conscience. I am not a religious member of any sect against 
war, but those are my personal views. I am a believer in constructive work and not work 
of destruction, which I regard this war to be. I am an American and a firm believer of 
American institutions. I was employed by the Government to make a survey of the fisher¬ 
ies conditions in Alaska three years ago, and made a report which was pronounced, I am 
told, very satisfactory.” 5 We did not learn how Whitney’s case was officially settled, but 
given his subsequent career record, as previously noted, it appears he was not profession¬ 
ally ruined by his outspokenness. 



Alvin Goodman Whitney, 1944. (New 
York State Museum, Albany.) 


622 








Biographies W ♦ Whitney 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

During the course of his career, Alvin Whitney had clerked for Clinton Hart Merriam, 
who had been on the Bering Sea Commission to investigate the Seal Islands (see Merriam’s 
biography). Whitney’s professional relationship with Dr. Merriam led to a government 
offer to teach on St. Paul Island, but the position required that he be married. A local 
newspaper made much of his ensuing wedding (“Bureau of Fisheries as a Matrimonial 
Agency” was the headline), but he and Elsie Gibson were already engaged. The lengthy 
newspaper story concluded: 

The school system of the Pribiloffs is a division of the work of the bureau of fisheries. It is 
the intention of the government to have two teachers on each of the large islands of the 
group. The fisheries people prefer that they have a man teacher and a woman. They also 
prefer to have them a married couple.... 

So Mr. Whitney betook himself to a telegraph office and sent the following to his fiancee, 

Miss Elsie J. Gibson of Burlington, Vt., who was attending the summer school for teachers 
at Dartmouth college: 

“Have offer for good teaching position for you at St. Paul, Pribiloff island. Salary twelve 
hundred, matrimony a pre-requisite. Answer paid.” 

Twelve hours later Mr. Whitney received an even shorter dispatch. It said: 

“Leaving for Washington; arrive Sunday morning.” 

Mr. Whitney went to the bureau of fisheries and told Chief Barton W. Evermann of the 
Alaskan division [sic] he had the candidate for the other teaching vacancy. 

“Name please?” said Mr. Evermann. 

“It’s Gibson now, but if you don’t want to make out the papers until Monday, it will be 
Whitney,” replied the male candidate. 38 

The Whitneys taught school as government employees on St. Paul Island during the 
1912-1914 school years. The St. Paul Island Agent’s Log recorded their arrival aboard the 
steamer Homer on August 28, 1912, identifying Whitney as the schoolteacher and Elsie 
Whitney as the “assistant school-teacher.” Few detailed references to the Whitneys were 
entered into the St. Paul Island Agent’s Log during their two-year stay. The following ex¬ 
amples were among them. 

[On October 2, 1912] at 8.30 p.m. all hands were turned out with lanterns in a pouring 
rain to search for Mrs. Whitney who had left the village alone at 3 p.m. Although at 
her departure she had said nothing to anyone as to her destination, I gathered from the 
statements of her husband, who had watched her as far as he could from Telegraph Hill, 
that she was somewhere between the village and Halfway Point and south of the wagon 
road to North East Point. The night was pitch dark. 

The advance guard of the searching party ... encountered Mrs. Whitney on the wagon 
road between the wells and the ice-house lake, returning unconcernedly, although wet to 
the skin. She had climbed Polavina according to her statement. 39 

An Agent’s Log entry in December 1912 credited the Whitneys with putting on a 
Christmas Eve skit involving the schoolchildren—“Little Jack Horner and his Christmas 
Pie”—in the Native shop. 40 


623 







Bureau of Fisheries as a Matrimonial Agency 



W ASHINGTON.—As a matrimonial 
agency the United States bureau 
of fisheries has stepped into sudden 
prominence- The methods of the bu¬ 
reau are unique. The unions are ob¬ 
tained with speed and precision. The 
bureau embarked in its new line of en¬ 
deavor the other day. The result of 
its first attempt is speeding happily 
westward with a honeymoon in the 
"weet breezes of the PribilofT islands 
as an objective. It all came about in 
this way. 

Out in the Pribiloffs there are few- 
white people, but many Alieuts, and 
the progeny of the Alieuts are both nu¬ 
merous and ignorant. To the bureau 
of fisheries, which is the real gov¬ 
ernment of the Pribiloffs and the 
Alieuts and seals which there abound, 
has been delegated the task of bring¬ 
ing light where heretofore was dark¬ 
ness. The school system of the Prib¬ 
iloffs is a division of the work of the 
bureau of fisheries. It is the intention 
of the government to have two 
teachers on each of the large islands 
of the group. The fisheries people 
prefer that they have a man teacher 
and a woman. They also prefer to 
have them a married couple. 

Casting about lor new material, the 
bureau found that Alvin G. Whitney 
of Groton, Mass., wanted to become an 


Alaskan school teacher. Mr. Whitney 
passed the examination in fine stvle. 
He was just about to be appointed 
when it was explained to him that the 
Pribiloff government, which is the 
bureau of fisheries, wanted married 
teachers. The case was explained to 
him by Dr. C. Hart Merriam, one time 
biologist of the department of agri¬ 
culture, whose secretary Mr. Whitney 
formerly was. 

"Do you know any one who could fill 
the vacancy at the island of St. Paul 
to which you will be assigned?" asked 
Mr. Merriam. 

“Sure," replied Mr. Whitney, *T11 
telegraph and find out about it right 
away." 

So Mr. Whitney betook himself to a 
telegraph office and sent the following 
to his fiancee. Miss Eisie J. Gibson of 
Burlington, Vt., who was attending the 
summer school for teachers at Dart¬ 
mouth college: 

"Have offer for good teaching posi 
tion for you at St. Paul, Pribiloff is 
land. Salary twelve hundred, matri 
mony pre-requisite. Answer paid." 

Twelve hours later Mr. Whitney re¬ 
ceived an even shorter dispatch. It 
said: 

"Leaving for Washington; arrive 
Sunday morning." 

Mr. Whitney went to the bureau of 
fisheries and told Chief Barton W. Ev- 
ermann of the Alaskan division that 
he had the candidate for the other 
teaching vacancy. 

"Name, please?" said Mr. Evermann. 

"It's Gibson now, but if you don’t 
want to make out the papers until 
Monday, it will be Whitney,” replied 
the male candidate. 


“Bureau of Fisheries as a Matrimonial Agency” (The Bessemer Herald, Bessemer, Missouri, 
September 28, 1912, 8.) 


624 
























Biographies W ♦ Whitney 


In 1913, Mr. Whitney was noted as accompanying Professor George Clark, pre¬ 
sumably as part of Clarks introduction to the island environment. “Messrs. Clark and 
Whitney were sent in the launch to Zapadni, whence they walked to the village photo¬ 
graphing the rookeries en route.” 41 

The Whitneys’ own writings during this period are much more dramatic. According 
to a news article, they kept a daily diary from July 1913 to May 17, 1914, 42 and within 
that diary they “recited almost daily allegations of scandalous conduct on the part of of¬ 
ficials.” 43 Purportedly, the diary documented malfeasance by five government employees. 
We did not locate the Whitneys’ diary or any government documents quoting from it. 
However, the New York Times reproduced some of their entries in a story on July 21,1914, 
and several are recounted here. 

Aug. 19 to 22, 1913. The yacht Adventuress arrived Aug. 19 with Roy C. Andrews and the 
yachting and hunting party he accompanied [see Roy Andrews biography]. [Agent and 
Caretaker, Phillip R. E.] Hatton, Tongue, and Dr. McGovern spent days entertaining the 
party on shore or visiting on board the yacht. Their entertainment was invariably gambling 
and drinking day and night. During this interval Mr. Andrews and I were occupying our 
time with photographic work. 

While one would not expect Agent Hatton to include entries in his log of “gambling 
and drinking day and night,” some of his entries seem to undercut at least some of the 
Whitney’s allegations, including one about the Whitneys spending an evening on the 
yacht Adventuress. 44 


Tuesday, Aug. 19, 1913 

At 5:30 P. M. today the yacht Adventuress, belonging to Mr. John Borden came to anchor 
off village landing. Mr. Tongue and I went out to [the] yacht with several natives at 7 P.M. 
and Mr. Andrews came ashore with us to spend the night. 

Wednesday, Aug. 20, 1913 

Messrs. John Borden, Scott, Brown, Harris, and Capt. Sparks were ashore to lunch and 
dinner. Messrs. Andrews, Borden, Harris, Brown, and Scott stayed ashore for the night. 
Crew from yacht visited Reef rookeries today with an escort. 

Thursday, Aug. 21, 1913 

On Mr. Borden’s invitation, Mrs. Chamberlain, Mr. and Mrs. Whitney, Mr. Tongue, Dr. 
McGovern and I [Hatton] had dinner aboard the yacht at 6 P.M. Mr. Borden and the whole 
party were very nice to all and we returned about 9 o’clock, having spent an enjoyable 
evening. 


Friday, Aug. 22, 1913 

Mr. Andrews received a message from Unalaska tonight which required his presence on the 
yacht. I [Hatton] went out to the ship with Mr. Andrews and several natives in the launch at 
9 P.M. [The] boatkeeper and engineer for launch, was running the engine and I discovered, 
after leaving the dock, that he was so drunk that he could hardly understand anything 
about the engine. I then told Mike Kozlof to take the tiller and ordered [the boatkeeper] out 
of the engine room and ran the engine myself. [The boatkeeper] is a good man about the 
boats and engine when he is sober, but when even slightly drunk not a bit of reliance can be 
had in his actions. We returned from the yacht at 10 P.M. 

Regarding the above incident, the Whitneys reportedly stated in their diary: 


625 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


When Mr. Andrews and Mr. Hatton went out to the yacht in the evening to bring the 
former's outfit ashore the native engineer was so drunk as to be useless and came near 
sinking the launch. The weather was stormy and dark and the sea rough. The delay of the 
party in returning caused great apprehension on shore and finally a rescuing party prepared 
to set out. At this juncture Dr. McGovern who was drunk got into a quarrel with the native 
boatsman and ended up by a fist fight with the Russian priest. 45 

The next day, Agent Hatton wrote in the log. 

Saturday, Aug. 23, 1913 

Yacht Adventuress, left about day[break] this morning for Unalaska. Mr. Andrews did not 
leave on the yacht but will go to Unalaska on a cutter later on. 

Agent Hatton did record in the log that Alvin Whitney accompanied filmmaker 
Roy C. Andrews over several days in August 1913, to film seals at Reef, Gorbatch, and 
Northeast Point rookeries 46 (see Roy Andrews biography). 

About two weeks after the Adventuress departed the Seal Islands, and about a year 
before the Whitneys released their allegations, schoolteacher Whitney was accused by 
boatkeeper Neon Tetoff of assaulting his sixteen-year-old son. 

Neon Tetof [sic] came to the office after dinner tonight and complained that his son 
Dimitria [sic] had been beaten in a shameful manner by Mr. Whitney in the school this 
afternoon. I requested Mr. and Mrs. Whitney to come down to the office and we all talked 
the matter over. 47 

Whitney explained the incident to the satisfaction of Agent Hatton, who in turn ex¬ 
plained the basis for Whitney’s actions to Dimitria’s father, which conflicted with the 
story told by the young Tetoff. 

We explained the case to Neon and told him that Dimitria was entirely wrong and that he 
would have to do better in school or some severe measures would be taken. Neon finally 
agreed that his son had acted the wrong part and promised to censure him good before 
sending him to school tomorrow. 

It is quite evident that the natives on these islands are opposed to any school teacher and 
they all look upon the teachers as enemies. If who is in charge did not back up the teachers 
and help them maintain order and attendance then the school department here would be 
worse than useless. 48 

According to the New York Times (July 21, 1914), other entries in the Whitney diary 
included: 

Sept. 20, 1913. A dance was held at night at the native shop. Several natives were drunk 
there. 

Nov. 23 to 29, 1913. This was foxing week when most of the native men were away from 
the village trapping. The white men embraced this opportunity to seduce native women, as 
I afterward learned. When the hunters returned at the end of the week there was a grand 
celebration, practically the whole community being drunk. 

In 1914, as the New York Times article stated, Alvin and Elsie Whitney brought allega¬ 
tions against five government men on the Pribilof Islands. 

Secretary Redfield of the Department of Commerce has submitted all the original 
complaints in the Pribilof Islands scandal to Attorney General McReynolds for action. The 
Whitneys charge gross immorality, seduction of the native women by Government agents, 


626 




Biographies W ♦ Whitney 


flagrant law violation in furnishing intoxicating liquors to the natives, and illegal killing of 
fur seal pups. 49 

Allegations were made against St. Paul and St. George Agents and Caretakers Phillip 
R. Hatton and A. H. Proctor, respectively; St. Paul storekeeper L. N. Tongue; former phy¬ 
sician Dr. C. J. McGovern; and the Navy’s wireless operator on St. Paul, P. L. McClenny. 

After Mr. and Mrs. Whitney had forwarded their original report, Hatton on June 2 
telegraphed his resignation to the Government [sic]. At the same time Dr. Henry Esmond, 
a physician in the Federal Fisheries Service on the island, resigned. Mr. Whitney learned of 
this and he at once sent this radio message to Secretary Redfield: 

Earnestly request immediate inquiry into existing conditions on St Paul Island on account 
several employees preparing to leave. I request that all island officials be held pending 
investigation. 

Deputy Commissioner of Fisheries Ernest Lester Jones happened to be in Alaskan 
waters to investigate the halibut industry. He was instructed on June 11 to proceed im¬ 
mediately on the Albatross to the Pribilof Islands to investigate the scandal (see E. Lester 
Jones biography). 50 

The following telegram was sent to Whitney: 

Do not allow any employe [sic] to leave pending Jones’s arrival. 51 

On June 12 the resignations were refused and the following radio message was sent to 
Hatton by the fisheries commissioner: 

Hatton, St. Paul Island, Alaska (wireless via North Head, Wash.): 

Your resignation not accepted pending investigation by Deputy Commissioner Jones, due 
at islands about July 17. Do not leave prior to his arrival or allow any employe [sic] to do so. 

SMITH, Commissioner of Fisheries 52 

Presumably, the Whitneys departed St. Paul Island with investigator E. Lester Jones 
following his on-island investigation. 

According to the Bureau of Fisheries Commissioner’s annual report for the 1914- 
1915 school year, school conditions improved remarkably under Mr. and Mr. George 
Haley following the departure of the Whitneys. 53 

Alvin Whitney told newspaper reporters, as noted earlier, that he was hired by the 
government to report on the fisheries of Alaska. We did not find any other reference to 
such a report, but Whitney was given credit for making various natural history collec¬ 
tions on St. Paul Island. In a 1923 Bureau of Biological Survey report on the topic of the 
Pribilof Islands, author Edward Preble wrote: 

Alvin G. Whitney, school-teacher on St. Paul Island from the summer of 1912 to the 
summer of 1914, made considerable collections of insects and shells and some other 
invertebrates, but his contributions to ornithology and mammalogy were small. 54 

Preble did not cite any report by Whitney in those regards. Many years later, in 1960, 
former Pribilof Islands schoolteacher and natural historian G Dallas Hanna mentioned 
Whitney in responding to a question about the name and number of lakes on St. Paul 
Island. Not all the lakes were named during his time on the island, Hanna said, but they 


627 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


were numbered. “We used those numbers to a certain extent. And there is one that was 
named after I came here called Whitney Pond. I do not remember where Whitney Pond 
is or which one it was. Whitney was a schoolteacher here in 1913 and he collected about 
a half a dozen birds, some of which were very important, too, but that lake came to be 
called Whitney Pond. You’ll see it referred to in some of the literature, I think. In [George] 
Haley’s notes it is referred to very frequently. I do not recall that any of the lake numbers 
were ever published.” 55 


Williams, William H. ( 1835 - 1909 ) 

Special Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury, St. Paul Island, 1891-1892 

Special Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury Foreign Office, Paris, France, 1893-1908 

Genealogy 

William H. Williams was born in 1835 at Lafayette, 
Medina County, Ohio, the son of Roswell Williams 
(1808-1834) and Clarinda Irena (Jenkins) Williams 
(1812-1870). William Williams married Louisa 
Corinne Hitchcock, daughter of William Hitchcock 
and Almira Ann (Bissell) Hitchcock, on March 26, 
1860, in Medina County, Ohio. Their children, all born 
in Medina County, were: Gertrude J. Williams (born 
1863, married Charles R. Bradley); Don R. Williams 
(born 1868); Clare Garfield Williams (born May 16, 
1872, married Lulu Martin; Clare died September 14, 
1957, in Los Angeles, California); Carl S. Williams 
(born May 16, 1872, married Annette Pratt; Carl died 
November 9, 1960, at Pennsburg, Pennsylvania); and Blake Williams (born 1876). 56 Major 
William H. Williams died September 18, 1909, at Oak Park, Illinois, at the age of seventy- 
three. 57 

Biographical Sketch 

The pioneers who settled at Lafayette, Ohio, in the 1820s included William Williams’ 
father, Roswell Williams, one of the founders of the first Congregational Church at 
Lafayette (April 17, 1824). 58 William H. Williams and his brother Henry and sisters Mary 
and Laura grew up in Lafayette. William and his wife, Louisa, settled after their marriage 
in 1860 in the town of Medina, Ohio, where William was a teacher. 59 At the outbreak of 
the Civil War, he enlisted in the Union Army as a captain of the 42nd Ohio Infantry. He 
showed leadership abilities in many battles and by May of 1863 was serving as a major 
under Major General Ulysses S. Grant at Vicksburg, Mississippi. A monument to the 
42nd Ohio Infantry, bearing William H. Williams’ name, is located on Union Avenue at 
Vicksburg National Military Park. 60 



Civil War monument to the 42nd 
Ohio Infantry, Vicksburg National 
Military Park. (National Park 
Service.) 


628 














Biographies W ♦ Whitney - Williams 


After the Civil War, Major Williams returned 
to the family farm at Lafayette. 61 Ten years later, the 
Williams family was living in Chatham, Ohio, a few 
miles from Lafayette. William became a cheese man- 

had moved 

to the larger community of Wellington, Ohio, in the 
neighboring county of Lorain, and William took on a 
new job. 

On May 27, 1891, Major Williams, as Special 
Agent for the Department of the Treasury, left 
San Francisco, California, for the Pribilof Islands, 
in the company of Special Commissioner Joseph 
Stanley-Brown and Special Agent Louis Nettleton. 63 
Thus began Williams’ service with the Treasury 
Department, which lasted for fifteen years and includ¬ 
ed the uproarious pelagic sealing era. Major Williams 
played a leading role in the Fur-Seal Arbitration at 
Paris, France. 

Major Williams, one of the American attaches, said 
that the result of the regulations [put forward by the 
Paris Tribunal of Arbitration] would probably be the 
abandonment of the Canadian pelagic hunting, as 
it would not pay under the restrictions imposed. The consensus of opinion among the 
American agents and counsel is that, though technical success rests with Great Britain on 
local points, on practical grounds the victory is to the United States, as the arbitration was 
entered upon to preserve the seals and the decision achieves that result. 64 

As time would soon reveal, Major Williams erred in his assessment that the award 
was in favor of the United States. Regardless, following the Fur-Seal Arbitration of 1893 
he was appointed head of the Europe Foreign Office as Special Agent of the Treasury, 
with an office in Paris. Fie was sent to London in 1898 when the law against pelagic seal¬ 
ing was not being enforced. 

Major Williams ... has acknowledged that his inquiries have discouraged him. He 
believes it will be impossible for the Government to enforce the law in its present form. 
Comparatively few of the sealskins can be identified after they have passed through the 
hands of the wholesale and the retail dealers. So it looks as if the Government would have 
to find some other way to protect the seals from threatened extinction. 65 

On October 1, 1904, at the age of sixty-eight, Major Williams arrived in New York 
from Europe with his wife, Louisa, age sixty-four. They settled in Oak Park, a suburb 
of Chicago, Illinois. At the time of his death, their son Carl was a physician practicing 
sports medicine in Philadelphia, and son Clare was a U.S. Customs House inspector in 
San Francisco. 66 


ufacturer, 63 but by 1891 he and his family 


five Cents 



Cover of The Great Round World, 
which published an article about 
the plight of the fur seal following 
the award of the Paris Tribunal of 
Arbitration. 


629 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


Fur-Seal Arbitration Deposition 

William H. Williams deposed for the Tribunal of Arbitration on March 19, 1892, before 
Notary Public Charles H. Hughes at Washington, D.C. The following is an excerpt: 

I reside at Wellington, Ohio and am 55 years of age. I am the United States Treasury Agent 
in charge of the Seal Islands in Bering Sea. 

That thousands of female seals were captured by the pelagic hunters in Bering Sea 
during the season of 1891, the most of which had to be secured quite a distance from the 
rookeries, owing to the presence of armed vessels patrolling the sea for miles around the 
islands, and that the slaughter of the seals was mostly of females, was confirmed by the 
thousands of dead pups lying on the rookeries starved to death by the destruction of their 
mothers. 

My investigation confirms what has been so often said by others who have reported upon 
this subject, and that is that the Pribilof Islands are the great breeding grounds of the 
fur-seals, and that they can be reared in great numbers on said islands, and at the same 
time, under wise and judicious restrictions, a certain number of male seals can be killed 
from year to year without injury to the breeding herds, and their skins disposed of for 
commercial purposes, thereby building up and perpetuating this great industry indefinitely, 
and thus adding to the wealth, happiness, and comfort of the civilized world, while, on the 
other hand, if the pelagic hunting of this animal is to continue, and the barbarous practice 
of killing the mother seal with her unborn young, or when she is rearing it, is to go on, it 
will be but a very short time before the fur seal will practically become extinct and this 
valuable industry will pass out of existence. 67 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Secretary of the Treasury Charles Foster issued a “Letter of Instruction to Special Agent 
Williams” as the latter prepared to undertake his position on the Pribilof Islands. Excerpts 
from Foster’s letter provide some insight into the critical comments in Williams’ annual 
reports on the situation of the islands’ Native population. 

Mr. Nettleton, one of the Treasury agents for the islands ... will be accompanied by 
Mrs. Nettleton, who goes to teach the school upon the island where her husband may be 
stationed. 

Mrs. Nettleton will accompany her husband, and you are hereby directed to place her in 
charge of one of the schools, and to determine with the company, a fair compensation 
for her services.... The schools will be maintained from September 1 to May 31, and be 
open for five days in a week.... It will be the principal duty of the teacher to instruct the 
children in acquiring a knowledge of the English language. Russian is not to be taught in 
the schools, and the church officers must be restrained from interfering with the children 
in acquiring a knowledge of English, and should be advised that they will only do harm if 
they attempt to thwart the purpose of the Government in having the children educated in 
the language of the country. 

You will endeavor to secure the good will and confidence of the native inhabitants of the 
islands, and advise them, whenever practicable, of their rights and duties as American 
citizens, and by proper means try to increase their friendship for the Government and the 
people of the United States. 

The care and welfare of the natives are matters which should receive your careful attention, 
and among your most important duties is the insistence that the North American 
Commercial Company shall fulfill all the obligations of their lease toward these people. The 
Government maintains a protectorate over them, and they look to its agents to see that 
their employers, the lessees, carry out in good faith all they promise. 


630 






Biographies W • Williams 


The question of the depopulation of the islands of St. Paul and St. George is a serious one 
and demands attention. Through some false notions, said to have been inculcated among 
the natives by the church authorities on the islands, they are not permitted to intermarry 
if there is between them the remotest degree of consanguinity, and even the relation of 
godfather or godmother is held to be sufficient to prevent a union. As the regulations 
prevent any male person from going to the islands to reside permanently, there is a 
dearth of young men, and the young women are more apt to find husbands elsewhere. 

The number of natives on the islands is gradually diminished and each year laborers are 
taken there for the season from Unalaska and vicinity. It is understood that residence 
upon the Pribilof group of islands is considered by the Aleuts to be very desirable and 
to insure a comparatively comfortable existence, which they do not always have in other 
parts of Alaska. You will, therefore, take into consideration the proposition to recruit the 
permanent inhabitants of the islands of St. Paul and St. George by placing upon them next 
year a small number (ten or twenty) of young men, or transferring to these islands several 
families in which are a number of young men. It is thought that there will be no trouble in 
finding suitable persons willing to go there, and it may well be to canvass the matter among 
the people now living upon the islands and devise some way of making the selection. 

Care should of course be taken not to add to the number of sick or infirm persons already 
there, but the bringing of men from the Aleutian chain to remain for the season only has a 
demoralizing effect, both upon them and upon the permanent residents of the islands. 68 

William Williams responded, at least through his annual reports, regarding many of 
the directives in the Secretary’s letter. 

The care and welfare of the natives and the obligations of the North American Commercial 
Company ... to these people are subjects to which I have given careful attention. The 
supplies provided by the company for the last year and kept on sale at the company’s 
stores were of good, substantial quality, and were sold at very reasonable prices. I note one 
exception to the above statement, and that is the price ... charged for coal--$33.60 per ton. 

I deem this to be exorbitant, and see no good reason why the natives should be charged 
any more than the price paid for coal furnished the Government house, to wit, $15 per 
ton. The question of sufficient fuel on the islands is a serious one, and demands careful 
consideration by the Department. The lessees are required, under their lease, to furnish 
80 tons of coal, and this, with what driftwood can be secured and the blubber taken from 
seals during the killing season, is expected to provide fuel sufficient for about 60 families 
in a climate where it is necessary to have a fire every day in the year. The driftwood is very 
hard to secure, of limited supply, very poor in quality, and in most cases is thrown upon 
the shores miles from the villages. They have no means of transporting it except on their 
backs or on hand sleds drawn over the crusted snow in midwinter. The blubber is stored in 
barrels and boxes for winter supply, and in a short time becomes rancid, the stench arising 
from its use permeates every part of their dwellings, and is unhealthy, sickening, and 
disgusting. Other fuel should be substituted, even if it has to be done at the expense of the 
Government. 

Under Department instructions of May 21 last... I increased the amount of coal from 
80 to 160 tons, giving 100 tons to natives on St. Paul and 60 tons to natives on St. George 
Islands. This, with what other fuel they have on hand, will make them fairly comfortable 
for the winter. I would recommend hereafter [that] arrangements be made by which the 
inhabitants on St. George shall have 100 and on St. Paul 200 tons of coal. This would 
require 220 tons to be furnished by the Government in addition to the 80 tons furnished by 
the company, and would give 5 tons to each familyT 

Williams argued in his 1891 and 1892 annual reports to the Secretary of the Treasury 
that the education of the Native children paid for by the lessees was wholly inadequate. 

Especial attention is invited to the schools on the seal islands. They have been in operation 
over twenty years, and yet they have not succeeded in teaching a pupil to read or write 
a sentence in the English language. Schools in charge of good, competent teachers, who 


631 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


have other qualifications than those of being bookkeepers or seal clubbers, should be 
insisted upon by the Department, and the school season should be changed from the 
short, cold, dark, and blustering days of winter, when, on account of the inclemency of the 
weather, the school has to be discontinued for days at a time, to the more pleasant months 
of summer. Radical changes are absolutely necessary in these respects if it is the desire 
of our Government to civilize, educate, and improve this people. That these people are 
quick to learn and susceptible to rapid improvement is demonstrated in the charity school 
at Unalaska, conducted by Mr. and Mrs. Tuck. Six of the most promising orphans on the 
islands were sent there in September, 1890, and I found on visiting the school this year that 
they could talk the English language quite fluently and read and write quite intelligently. 

The teachers as well as the physicians should be employees of the Government.... 0 

The lessees complied with their contract and furnished teachers for the length of time 
required, but so far as producing favorable results is concerned it was a waste of time and 
money, and so it will be as long as the present condition exists. When the time arrives that 
these children can be placed under faithful Christian teachers who will teach them habits 
of industry and morality, and under these conditions the blessing of home and home life, 
then may we look for gratifying results, but not before. A practical demonstration of this is 
to be seen at the native school at Unalaska presided over by Mr. and Mrs. Tuck. 71 

The native priests can neither speak nor write a word of English, and it would seem as if the 
Greek Church was opposed to that language being spoken on these islands, for they persist 
in sending priests to the islands who can speak the Russian language only. While there is no 
disposition on my part to interfere with religious worship, I submit the suggestion that the 
authorities of the Greek Church be required to send to the islands only such priests as are 
capable of conducting their church services in the English language. 72 

Education for the islands’ children, especially in regard to their learning English, 
would be a concern for a long time. 

In the past they have been cared for very much as an animal would be cared for by its 
owner. Their physical necessities have been in the main fairly well supplied, but their 
moral, social, and civil rights have been wholly ignored, and they have been treated more 
like beasts of burden and slaves than as American citizens. Had a policy of kindness to the 
native man and protection to his wife and daughter been pursued in the past we would, 
no doubt, find them much further advanced in civilization and a much more healthy and 
useful people; and while there has been considerable improvement in many respects during 
the last year over what it must have been but a short time previous, still there is need of 
a decided stand to be taken by the Government, [against] who [ever] is insubordinate or 
who violates the laws of decency, or in any way interferes with the civil rights of the natives. 

I find these people civil, obedient, kind, and easily governed, and any system of labor or 
government which tends to degrade their family relations or takes away or destroys their 
rights as American citizens ought not to be tolerated. 73 

Williams also responded to Secretary Foster’s expression of concern over depopula¬ 
tion and the islands’ workforce. 

The gradual decrease of population on the islands of St. George and St. Paul is a subject 
to which I have given careful consideration. Owning to the limited catch this year and 
the unfavorable opportunity for those already upon the islands to earn enough to support 
themselves, I did not deem it advisable to encourage immigration. 

One of the customs of the church authorities on these islands is to prohibit any of its 
followers to intermarry if there is the remotest degree of consanguinity, and even the 
[relationship] of godfather or godmother is held to be sufficient to prevent a union. 

Consequently I found most of the young people on the islands, of suitable age, prevented 
from marrying on account of relationship. Hygienic and sanitary laws, religious customs, 
and civil privileges, all enter into this question, and require good judgment in arriving 


632 




Biographies W ♦ Williams 


at a wise conclusion. I conferred with the natives on the subject and suggested certain 
conditions whereby permanent residents might be brought upon the islands, and it 
apparently met their approval, but it further developed the fact that the practice of 
bringing people from Unalaska or any other place to work during the sealing season has a 
demoralizing effect upon the native inhabitants and should never be permitted under any 
circumstances . 74 


**** 


David Starr Jordan quoted Williams on the direct effects of pelagic sealing: 

Mr. Williams and his assistants reached the conclusion, true beyond all question, that “the 
seals were decreasing very rapidly, and that the cause of their decrease was pelagic or deep- 
sea hunting.” “I am convinced,” he says, “that the conclusion arrived at is the correct one, 
and any attempt to make it appear to be due to other causes is not warranted by the facts.” 

The many subsequent investigations have only confirmed this just conclusion, and it is the 
essential fact in the whole fur-seal controversy. It is, moreover, one which every British 
discussion of the subject, of whatever grade, has persistently avoided . 75 

In the spring of 1892, during Williams’ tenure, the Bering Sea Arbitration Hearings 
were in progress and the United States Treasury was gathering documentation to support 
its case before the hearing committees in Paris. Joseph Stanley-Brown had been assigned 
as Special Treasury Agent, with Clerk Assistant Harry D. Chichester, to compile maps, 
photographs, and other data for government authorities in Washington. Williams’ role 
was to administer oaths, using his authority under section 1976, Revised Statutes of the 
United States, and to collect testimonials from certain people on St. Paul Island. On May 
30, 1892, he began gathering information. 

I called the oldest and most prominent men together and explained how their affidavits 
should be made, and the necessity that they should tell the whole truth and only the truth 
as they know the facts. Simeon and Antone Meliviedoff (sic) very kindly agreed to assist in 
the work of taking affidavits . 76 

Williams deposed the following people on St. Paul Island (all spellings of names are as 
written by William Williams): Kerrick Artomanoff, Native Chief of St. Paul Island; Milton 
Barnes, special employee of the U.S. Treasury; Karp Buterin, Head Chief in charge of seal 
drives; John Fratis, resident and employee of the North American Commercial Company 
(NACC); Aggie Kushin, assistant priest and employee of NACC; Jacob Kotchooten, 
Native sealer; Nicoli Krukoff, Native employee of NACC; Anton and Simeon Melovedoff; 
Neon Mandregin; Apollon Borudakaffsky; J. C. Redpath; C. L. Fowler; and J. C. S. Akerly. 
Portions of some of their testimonials are presented throughout this book. 


633 



Pribilof Islands: The People 


1 U.S. Dept, of State, Passport Applications 1795-1905, NARA, RG 59, microfilm publ. M1372, pass¬ 
port no. 5290, issued Apr. 1, 1878, and passport no. 7143, issued Feb. 10, 1896 (George Wardman); 
U.S. Dept, of State, Passport Applications 1906-1925, NARA, RG 59, microfilm publication M1490, 
no. 52407, issued Mar. 6, 1915 (Mary V. Wardman); George W. Kingsbury, History of Dakota 
Territory, vol. 4 (Chicago: S.}. Clarke, 1915), 420; Family Group Record, “William Wardman,” Family 
Search International Genealogical Index v5.0, http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/search/IGI/famiIy_ 
group_record; U.S. Census, 1880-1910, George Wardman; Utah State Archives, “George Wardman, 
defendant,” Salt Lake County Probate Court, Salt Lake City, UT, series 373, reel 22, case 222, July 3, 
1873—July 12, 1873; Dumas Malone, “Ervin Wardman,” in Dictionary of American Biography (New 
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1964), vol 10, 445-6; San Francisco, CA, Passenger Lists of Vessels 
Arriving at San Francisco 1893-1957, NARA, RG 085, microfilm M1410, arrival Apr. 21, 1926, SS 
President Lincoln, no. 101; State of California Death Index, 1940-1997, George Benjamin Wardman 
and Emily Wringrose Wardman, Ancestry.com; and State of California Dept, of Public Health, Vital 
Records, Wardman, George, Death Record no. 14-11091. 

2 Norman D. Weis, Ghost Towns of the Northwest (Caldwell, ID: Caston, 1988), 167-74. 

3 Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory, 420. 

4 Marion McMillan Huseas, Sweetwater Gold: Wyoming’s Gold Rush, 1867-1871 (Cheyenne, WY: 
Cheyenne Corral of Westerners International, 1991), 91; and Wardman Bros, advertisement, South 
Pass News, Apr. 9, 1870. 

5 Weis, Ghost Towns of the Northwest, 198-9. 

6 South Pass City Lode, Wyoming Mine Claims Carter County Book 19, Wyoming State Archives, 
Cheyenne, WY, 34. 

7 Huseas, Sweetwater Gold, 91. 

8 Ervin Wardman’s Idaho House is now (2008) called the Sherlock Hotel. It is an American Historic 
Building at the South Pass City State Historic Site, and it was reconstructed in 1970-71. Historic 
American Buildings Survey (HABS), WY-48, “Historic American Engineering Record,” http:// 
memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage; Huseas, Sweetwater Gold, 91; and “Prospecting Notice,” South Pass 
News, Sept. 27, 1870. 

9 Taft Alfred Larson, History of Wyoming, 2nd ed., revised (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska, 1978), 72 n7. 

10 Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, City Directories, Senator John Heinz Research Center, Pittsburgh, PA, 
verification of George Wardman’s work in Pittsburgh by Heinz Res. Ctr. Assistant Librarian Richard 
Price to Betty Lindsay, Dec. 17, 2007. 

11 U.S. Census, 1900. 

12 “Deaths, Funerals” (George Benjamin Wardman), Los Angeles Times, Jan. 3, 1951; and “Mrs. Emily 
Wardman, Obituary,” Los Angeles Times, July 24, 1958. 

13 U.S. Census, 1880, Cleveland, Ohio, 102; Sarah H. Killikelly, The History of Pittsburgh: Its Rise And 
Progress (Pittsburgh, PA: B. C. and Gordon Montgomery, 1906), 495; U.S. Census, 1900, Eddy, New 
Mexico, 12; and U.S. Census, 1910, Long Beach, Ward 4, Los Angeles County, CA, 210. 

14 W. Joseph Campbell, Yellow Journalism, Puncturing the Myths, Defining the Legacies (Santa Barbara, 
CA: Praeger, 2001), 5. 

15 Marquis, Who Was Who In America, vol. 1, 1897-1942 (Chicago, IL: Marquis, 1968), 1299. John 
Ervin Wardman published the first comic strip in color, “Hogan’s Alley,” with a street urchin in a 
yellow nightgown drawn by Richard Felton Outcault; “Death of Outcault,” Time Magazine, Oct. 8, 
1928, 30-31. 

16 "Abuses in Alaska,” New York Times, Dec. 20, 1888, 3. 

17 George Wardman spelled the islands as “Pryvolof” in his 1883 article “The Seal Islands of Alaska,” 
The Overland Monthly 2, no. 7: 28-32. 

18 George Wardman, A Trip to Alaska: A Narrative (San Francisco: Samuel Carson, 1884), 2. 

19 Ibid., 109-18. 

20 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, convened at Paris 
under the Treaty between the United States of America and Great Britain, concluded at Washington 
February 29, 1892, for the determination of questions between the two governments concerning the 
jurisdictional rights of the United States in the waters of Bering Sea, vol. 3, 177-8. 

21 “Lenker, Althouse, Loos, Doney, Herrington, Scott, Washburn,” Ancestry World Tree at Ancestry, 
com (accessed Feb. 23, 2006); Family Group Record, Ancestral File, http://www.familysearch.org/ 
Eng/Search/AF/family_group_record (accessed Sep. 29, 2003); and http://www.familysearch.org/ 


634 




Biographies W ♦ Notes 


Eng/Search/Census/household_record (accessed Sep. 29, 2003). 

22 Lenker, Althouse, Loos, Doney, Herrington, Scott, Washburn,” Ancestry World Tree at Ancestry, 
com (accessed Feb. 23, 2006); and “Washburn Family in America,” Rootsweb, at Ancestry.com (ac¬ 
cessed Sept. 23, 2006). 

23 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 154-5. 

24 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, June 23, 1900, 462. 

25 U.S. Census, 1850, New London, CT, NARA, microfilm roll M432, box 49, 143; U.S. Census, 1860, 
New London, CT, NARA, microfilm roll M653 box 89, 261; U.S. Census, 1880, San Francisco, 

CA, 8th Ward, NARA, microfilm roll T9, box 75, 329A; U.S. Census, St. George Island, Southern 
Supervisors District, AK, NARA, microfilm roll T623, box 1832, ED 23, 5A; U.S. Census, 1900, 

San Francisco, CA, NARA, microfilm roll T623, box 105, vol. 33, ED 186, 8; U.S. Census, 1920, San 
Francisco, CA, NARA, microfilm roll T625, box 142, ED 319, 16A; U.S. Census, 1920, Oakland, CA, 
NARA, microfilm roll T625, box 90, ED101, IB; and State of California Dept, of Health Services, 
California Death Index, 1940-1997, San Francisco, George Payne Webster, May 19, 1953, Ancestry, 
com (accessed June 10, 2009). 

26 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries and General Resources of 
Alaska (Washington, DC: GPO, 1898), vol. 2, 103. 

27 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 179. 

28 “Robert Owen Decker, Connecticut Whaling, Central Connecticut State University,” 1-6, http:// 
www.cthum.org/encyclopedia/topicalsurveys/whaling.htm (accessed Feb. 16, 2009). 

29 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, “Oral Argument of Regulations by Sir Charles Russell, A.C.M.P., 
Her Britannic Majesty’s Attorney-General, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration” (Washington: 
GPO, 1895), vol 14, 239. 

30 U.S. Congress, House, Investigation of the Fur-Seal. 

31 Ibid., 209. 

32 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, June 23, 1900, 462. 

33 Carl M. Hoverson, Agent’s Annual Report ending Mar. 31, 1946, RG 22, NARA, Pacific Alaska 
Region, Anchorage; and Pribilof Islands Program Agent’s Annual Reports 1929-1963, outline no. 13, 
Physician’s Report, Mar. 31, 1946, 17-21. 

34 Archives of Ontario, Registrations of Births and Stillbirths, 1869-1900, MS 929, reel 62, p. 181, no. 
267, certificate 038871. 

35 Social Security Index, Provo, UT, Ancestry.com (accessed June 22, 2008); and “Ancestors of Barbara 
Winifred Jenkins,” http://FamilyTreeMaker.genealogy.com (accessed June 22, 2008). 

36 "Obituary,” Times Record (Troy, NY), June 20, 1960. 

37 “Alvin G. Whitney, Forestry Instructor Held on Charge of Sedition,” The Syracuse Flerald, Thursday 
evening, July 12, 1917, 3. We did not find any direct reference to any report on the fisheries or other 
natural history subjects by Mr. Whitney. However, the St. Paul Island Agent’s Log entry under Sept. 
27, 1913 stated, “Several boats out fishing.... Good number of halibut, cod and sculpin caught. One 
native brought in a wolf fish which measured about 3^2 feet and weighed perhaps 25 pounds. Mr. 
Whitney purchased the fish and intends saving it for a specimen as he says there are no records of 
any of this species of fish being around the island; although some natives state that similar fish have 
been caught here a few times during the last 20 or more years.” 

38 “Bureau of Fisheries as a Matrimonial Agency,” The Bessemer Herald (Bessemer, MI), Sept. 28, 1912, 

8 . 

39 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, Oct. 20, 1912. 

40 Ibid., Dec. 24, 1912. 

41 Ibid., July 20, 1913. 

42 “Arrest Five Agents in Alaska Scandal,” New York Times, July 20, 1914, 1; and “Pribilof Orgies Stir 
Federal Anger,” New York Times, July 21, 1914, 10. 

43 Ibid. 

44 The Adventuress was named a National Historic Landmark in 1990; as late as 2009 it served as an 
environmental education sail-training vessel in the Puget Sound region. 

45 “Pribilof Orgies,” New York Times, July 21, 1914, 10. 

46 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, Aug. 24-25, 1913. 

47 Ibid., Sept. 11, 1913. 

48 Ibid. 


635 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


49 “Arrest Five,” New York Times, July 20, 1914, 1; and “Pribilof Orgies,” New York Times, July 21, 1914, 

10 . 

50 Ibid. 

51 Ibid. 

52 Ibid. 

53 Ward T. Bower and Henry D. Aller, Alaska Fisheries and Fur Industries in 1914, U.S. Bureau of 
Fisheries Doc. no. 819, 77; and Bower and Aller, Alaska Fisheries and Fur Industries in 1915, U.S. 
Bureau of Fisheries Doc. no. 834, 76-7. 

54 Edward A. Preble and Waldo L. McAtee, A Biological Survey of the Pribilof Islands, Alaska, North 
American Fauna no. 46, U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey (Washington, DC: GPO, 1923), 3. 

55 G Dallas Hanna, A Comparison of Conditions on St. Paul Island during 1913-1920 with the Present 
(Belvedere Scientific Fund, 1960), 13, found in the Fur-Seal Archives at the NMML Library, Seattle, 
WA. 

56 “Roswell Williams,” Family Group Record AFN: 134C-P10, http://familysearch.org; "Walzer Family 
Tree,” http://wc.rootsweb.com; U.S. Census, Medina County, Lafayette, OH, 1850, 256, Lafayette, 
1870, 21, and Chatham, 1880, 13; and State of California, California Death Index, 1940-1997, Los 
Angeles, Sept. 14, 1957. Additional information about Carl S. Williams derived from U.S. Dept, of 
State, Passport Applications, Jan. 2, 1906-Mar. 31, 1925; NARA, M1490, Apr. 24, 1922, Annette 
Pratt Williams, no. 452244; and “Dr. Carl Williams Dies,” New York Times, Nov. 10, 1960, 47. Annette 
Pratt was the granddaughter of the first chief justice of the California Supreme Court, “Obituary, 
Mrs. Carl S. Williams,” New York Times, Apr. 19, 1952. 

57 “Chicago Treasury Agent Dies, Maj. W. H. Williams, Former Member of President Garfield’s 
Regiment, Dead in Oak Park,” Chicago Sunday Tribune, Sept. 19, 1909, 2. 

58 N. B. Northrop, Pioneer History of Medina County (Medina, OH: Geo. Redway, 1861), 168. 

59 U.S. Census, Medina County, Lafayette, OH, 1850, 256, and Chatham, 1860, 211. 

60 Vicksburg National Military Park, Vicksburg, MS, http://www.nps.gov/archives/vick/oh/oh42inf. 
htm (accessed Jan 10, 2008). 

61 U.S. Census, 1870, Lafayette, OH, 21. 

62 U.S. Census, 1880, Chatham, OH, 13. 

63 “Going to the Sealing Grounds,” New York Times, May 28, 1891, 1. 

64 “More Than Was Asked,” New York Times, Aug. 16, 1893, 2. 

65 “The Great Round World and What is Going On In It,” Great Round World 2, no. 5 (Feb. 3, 1898), 65. 
(Note: this was a New York weekly newspaper.) 

66 Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1897-1957, NARA, Records 
of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, microfilm year 1904, film T715J500, 101 line 23; U.S. 
Census, 1910, Philadelphia, PA, 438, and Oakland City, CA, 5A. 

67 U.S. Senate, Fur-Seal Arbitration, vol. 3, 93-94. 

68 U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries of Alaska, vol. 1, 267-70. 

69 Ibid., 277. 

70 Ibid., 278-9. 

71 Ibid., 309. 

72 Ibid., 280. 

73 Ibid., 278. 

74 Ibid., 280. 

75 Ibid., 499. 

76 St. Paul Island Agent’s Log, 1892, 469. 


636 



Biographies: Addendum 


The following abridged biographies were unable to be included in the main sections. 


Bergsland, Knut (1914-1998) 

Linguist 

Biographical Sketch 

Active in Aleut linguistics since 1950, Bergsland became a professor at the University of 
Alaska following his retirement from the University of Oslo in 1981. He worked closely 
with Unangan people to record, document, and promote Unangam Tunuu. His major works 
wer e Aleut Dictionary: Unangam Tunudgusii (1994), Aleut Grammar (1997), and Ancient 
Aleut Personal Names (1998). In addition, he and Moses Dirk edited the Jochelson mate¬ 
rial collected in 1909-1910 in Aleut Tales and Narratives (1990). 

Pribilof Islands Experience 

Bergsland worked with several Pribilof people on the language, including Gabriel and 
Xenia Stepetin, Sally Bear, and Tatiana Bendixen. His work introduced a new orthogra¬ 
phy for the language and helped to standardize spellings. 


Black, Lydia (1925-2007) 

Historian and Ethnographer 
Biographical Sketch 

Born in Kiev, Ukraine, Lydia Black immigrated to the United States in 1950. In 1975 she 
made her first visit to the Aleutian Islands. She eventually became a professor at the 
University of Alaska, Lairbanks. 


637 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


Pribilof Islands Experience 

Her work as an ethnographer and historian have had a great influence on Unangan art and 
identity. Among her most important original works ar e Aleut Art: Unangam Aguqaadangin 
(1982, republished in 2003) and Russians in Alaska, 1732-1867 (2004). She also translat¬ 
ed material from many Russian sources, including works by Venaiminov and Netsvetov. 


Hope, Alice (1900-1966) 

Weaver and Health Provider 
Biographical Sketch 

Alice Merculief, born at St. Paul, was the daughter of Alexander D. Merculief and Agafia 
V. Balakshin. After her marriage to Charles Hope, she moved to Unalaska. She was taught 
how to weave exquisite Aleut baskets by Vassa Prokopiuff of Attu. Alice Hope went on 
to teach many other weavers. She was a trained midwife who for years provided the only 
health care at Unalaska. 


Rosanof, Peter (c. 1900) 

Early Informant on Aleut place names 
Biographical Sketch 

Peter Rosanof, described as “a native and long-time resident of the Pribilof Islands, who 
is fairly familiar with the English as wall as the Russian and Aleut languages,” gave G. R. 
Putnam over 60 geographic names for locations on St. George Island. Putnam, an as¬ 
sistant in the Coast and Geodetic Survey, published the names in 1903 in “Geographic 
Names in Alaska” as appendix 7 to Coast and Geodetic Survey Report. 


r 


638 







Selected Bibliography 


Adams, Bristow. Papers, 1853-1970, 1862-1957. Collection no. 3205, series I. Rare and 
Manuscript Collections, Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY. 

Adams, George R. 1982. Life on the Yukon 1865-1867. Edited by Richard A. Pierce. 
Kingston, ON: Limestone Press. 

Afonsky, Gregory. 1977. A History of the Orthodox Church in Alaska (1794-1917). 
Kodiak, AI<: St. Herman’s Theological Seminary. 

Alaskan Boundary Tribunal of United States and Great Britain. 1904. Proceedings of 
the Alaskan Boundary Tribunal, Convened at London, Under the Treaty 
Between the United States of America and Great Britain, Concluded 
at Washington, January 24, 1903, for the Settlement of Questions 
Between the Two Countries with Respect to the Boundary Line Between 
the Territory of Alaska and the British Possessions in North America. 
Washington, DC: GPO. 

Alaska Geographic Society. 1980. The Aleutians. Alaska Geographic Series 7, no. 3. 

-. 1982. Islands of the Seals: The Pribilofs. Anchorage: Alaska Geographic Society 

Series 9, no. 3. 

Alekseev, A. I. 1990. 77ze Destiny of Russian America 1741-1867. Edited by R. A. 

Pierce. Translated by Marina Ramsay. Kingston, ON and Fairbanks, AI<: 
Limestone Press. 

Aleutian Pribilof Island Community Development Association. 2004. 2004 

Multi-Species Community Development Quota: Third Quarter Report 
(public version). Anchorage, AI<: Aleutian Pribilof Island Community 
Development Assn. 

-. 2005. 2005 Multi-Species Community Development Quota: Second Quarter 

Report (public version). Anchorage, AK: Aleutian Pribilof Island 
Community Development Assn. 

Aleutian/Pribilof Islands Association. 1993. Making it Right: Restitution for Churches 
Damaged and Lost during the Aleut Relocation in World War II. 
Anchorage, AI<: Aleutian/Pribilof Islands Assn. 

Alexander, Philip W. 1916. History of San Mateo County: From the Earliest Times, with 
a Description of its Resources and Advantages, and the Biographies of its 
Representative Men. Burlingame, CA: Press of Burlingame. 

Aller, Henry D. 1911. “The Work of the Marine Biological Station of the U.S. Bureau 
of Fisheries at Beaufort, N.C. during the Year 1910.” Science 33 (861): 
997-1001. 


639 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


-. 1912. “Notes on the Distribution of the More Common Bivalves of Beaufort, 

NC.” Science 36 (August 2): 157-8. 

Allis, Watson Colt. Photo Album and Scrapbook, PCA 397. Alaska and Polar Regions 
Dept., Archives and Manuscript Unit, Elmer E. Rasmuson Library. Univ. 
of Alaska, Fairbanks. 

Amherst College. 1927. Amherst College Biographical Record. Centennial Edition 
(1821-1921). Amherst, MA: Fletcher and Young. 

Andrews, Clarence L. 1938. The Story of Alaska. Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers. 

Andrews, Roy Chapman. 1943. Under a Lucky Star. New York: Viking. 

Anon. 1900. “The Late E. J. Phelps.” Harper’s Weekly, March 24. 

-. 1931. “Obituary, David Starr Jordan.” Science 74 (October 2), 327-9. 

-. 1986. These Truths We Hold - The Holy Orthodox Church: Her Life and 

Teachings. [Compiled and Edited by A Monk of St. Tikhon’s Monastery.] 
South Canaan, PA: St. Tikhon’s Seminary Press. 

Appleton’s. 1889. Appleton’s Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important Events of 
the Year 1889. New series, vol. 14. New York: Appleton’s. 

Atherton, Gertrude. 1946. My San Francisco: A Wayward Biography. New York: 
Bobbs-Merrill. 

Atkins, Barton. 1898. Modern Antiquities: Comprising Sketches of Early Buffalo and the 
Great Lakes, Also Sketches of Alaska. Buffalo, NY: Courier. 

Atkinson, George W. 1890. Prominent Men of West Virginia. Vol. 2. Wheeling, WV: W. 
L. Callin. 

Austin, Oliver L. Jr., and Ford Wilke. 1950. Japanese Fur Sealing. U.S. Fish and 

Wildlife Service, Special Scientific Report, Wildlife 6. Washington, DC: 
GPO. 

Baird, Spencer F. Papers. Incoming correspondence, 1845-87. RU 7002, box 19, folder 
29-30, collection division 3. SIA, Washington, DC. 

Ballenger, Bruce. 1997. “Methods of Memory: On Native American Storytelling.” 
College English 59 (7). 

Baltzo, Ann, Stan Baltzo, Dorothy Baltzo, and Howard Baltzo. 1965. “A Family 
Summer at the Pribilofs.” Alaska Sportsman, November. 

Baltzo, C. Howard. 1963. Living and Working Conditions of the Pribilof Islands, Alaska. 
U.S. Fisheries Leaflet 548. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1963. “Program for Administration of the Pribilof Island Federal Reservation 

Embracing Management of the Fur Seal Resources and Development 
of the Resident Aleut Inhabitants.” Fur Seal Archives. Library of NOAA 
National Marine Mammal Laboratory. Seattle, WA. 


640 








Selected Bibliography 


Bancroft, Frederic. 1900. The Life of William H. Seward. Vol. 2. New York: Harper and 
Brothers. 

Bancroft, Hubert Howe. 1886. The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft. Vol. 33, The 
History of Alaska, 1730-1885. San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft. 

Bauman, Beth Hughers, and Dorothy J. Jackman. 1978. Burleigh County: Prairie 
Trails to Hi-Ways. Dallas, TX: Taylor. 

Beach, Rex. 1945. The World in His Arms. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 

Beckwith, H. W. 1880. History of Vigo and Parke Counties. Chicago: H. H. Hill. 

Belden, A. L. 1917. The Fur Trade of America. New York: Peltries. 

Bell, Ernest A. 1909. War on the White Slave Trade. Chicago: Charles C. Thompson. 

Bergsland, Knut. 1959. Aleut Dialects ofAtka and Attu. Transactions of the American 
Philosophical Society, New Ser. 49 (3). Philadelphia, PA American 
Philosophical Society. 

-. 1994 . Aleut Dictionary. Unangam Tunudgusii. Fairbanks: Alaska Native 

Language Center, Univ. of Alaska. 

-. 1997. Aleut Grammar: Unangam Tunuganaan Achixaasix. Fairbanks: Alaska 

Native Language Center, Univ. of Alaska. 

-, ed. 1998. Ancient Aleut Personal Names: Kadaangim Asangin/Asangis, 

Materials from the Billings Expedition 1790-1792. Fairbanks: Alaska 
Native Language Center, Univ. of Alaska. 

Berkh, Vasilii N. 1974. A Chronological History of the Discovery of the Aleutian Islands 
or the Exploits of Russian Merchants: With a Supplement of Historical 
Data on the Fur Trade. Edited by Richard A. Pierce. Translated by 
Dmitri Krenov. Kingston, ON: Limestone Press. Originally published 
as Khronologicheskaia istoriia otkrytiia Aleutskikh ostrovov, Hi podvigi 
Rossiiskogo kupechestva. (St. Petersburg: N. Grech, 1823). 

Bersey, John. 1900. Cyclopedia of Michigan: Historical and Biographical Synopsis of 
General History of the State and Biographical Sketches of Men who Have 
in Their Various Spheres Contributed Toward its Development. NY and 
Detroit, MI: Western Publishing & Engraving. 

Bingham, S. D. 1888. Early History of Michigan with Biographies of State Officers, 

Members of Congress, Judges and Legislators, Published Pursuant to Act 
59, 1887. Lansing, MI: Thorp & Godrey. 

Biographical Review. 1895. Biographical Review: This Volume Contains Biographical 
Sketches of the Leading Citizens of Livingston and Wyoming Counties, 
New York. Boston: Biographical Review. 

Black, Lydia T. 1982. Aleut Art, Unangam Aguqaadangin. Anchorage, Alaska: 

Aleutian/Pribilof Island Association] (second ed. published by The 
Donning Company Publishers in 2003). 


641 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


-. 2004. Russians in Alaska: 1732-1867. Fairbanks: Univ. of Alaska Press. 

Blackmar, Frank W., ed. 1912. Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History. Vol. 1. Chicago: 
Standard. 

Blomkvist, E. E. 1972. “A Russian Scientific Expedition to California and Alaska, 
1839-1849: The Drawings of I. G. Voznesenskii.” Translated by Basil 
Dmytryshyn and E. A. P. Crownhart-Vaughan. Oregon Historical 
Quarterly, 73 (2): 101-70. 

Blond, Georges. 1951. The Plunderers. Translated by Frances Frenaye. New York: 
Macmillan. 

Bolkhovitnov, Nikolai N. 1996. Russian-American Relations and the Sale of Alaska 
1834-1867. Kingston, ON, and Fairbanks, AK: Limestone Press. 

Boston Biographical Review. 1897. Biographical Review Containing Life Sketches of 
Leading Citizens of Plymouth County, Massachusetts. Vol. 18. Boston: 
Biographical Review. 

Bower, Ward T. 1919. Alaska Fishery and Fur Industries in 1918. U.S. Bureau of 
Fisheries Doc. 872. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1920. Alaska Fishery and Fur Industries in 1919. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries Doc. 

891. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1921. Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries in 1920. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries 

Doc. 909. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1922. Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries in 1921. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries 

Doc. 933. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1923. Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries in 1922. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries 

Doc. 951. Washington, DC: GPO. 

- . 1925. Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries in 1923. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries 

Doc. 973. Washington, DC: GPO. 

- . 1925. Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries in 1924. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries 

Doc. 992. Washington, DC: GPO. 

- . 1926. Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries in 1925. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries 

Doc. 1008. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1927. Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries in 1926. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries 

Doc. 1023. Washington, DC: GPO. 

- . 1928. Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries in 1927. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries 

Doc. 1040. Washington, DC: GPO. 

- . 1929. Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries in 1928. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries 

Doc. 1064. Washington, DC: GPO. 

. 1930. Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries in 1929. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries 
Doc. 1086. Washington, DC: GPO. 


642 
















Selected Bibliography 


-. 1931. Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries in 1930. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries. 

Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1932. Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries in 1931. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries. 

Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1933. Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries in 1932. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries. 

Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1934. Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries in 1933. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries. 

Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1935. Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries in 1934. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries 

Administrative Rep. 19. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1936. Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries in 1935. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries 

Administrative Rep. 23. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1937. Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries in 1936. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries 

Administrative Rep. 28. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1938. Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries in 1937. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries 

Administrative Rep. 31. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1940. Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries in 1938. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries 

Administrative Rep. 36. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1941. Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries in 1939. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries 

Administrative Rep. 40. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1942. “Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries: 1940.” U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

Service Statistical Digest 2. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1943. “Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries: 1941.” U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

Service Statistical Digest 5. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1944. “Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries: 1942.” U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

Service Statistical Digest 8. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1946. “Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries: 1944.” U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

Service Statistical Digest 13. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1948. “Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries in 1945.” U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

Service Statistical Digest 15. Washington, DC: GPO. 

Bower, Ward T., and Henry D. Aller. 1915. Alaska Fisheries and Fur Industries in 
1914. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries Doc. 819. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1917. Alaska Fisheries and Fur Industries in 1915. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries Doc. 

834. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1917. Alaska Fisheries and Fur Industries in 1916. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries Doc. 

838. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1918. Alaska Fisheries and Fur Industries in 1917. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries Doc. 

847. Washington, DC: GPO. 


643 






















Pribilof Islands: The People 


Bowman, Willard L. Papers, 1952-1979. Univ. of Alaska Library Archives, Anchorage. 

Bowman, Willard L., Roy Peratrovich, Howard Rock, James C. Rettie, and Hugh 
J. Wade. 1965. Economic and Social Conditions on the Pribilof Islands: 

A Report by Special Commission Appointed by the Governor of Alaska. 
Juneau, AI<. 

Brady, John G. 1901-5. Report of the Governor of the District of Alaska to the Secretary 
of the Interior. Washington, DC: GPO. 

Brainard, W. F. 1911. Who’s Who in New York City and State: A Biographical 

Dictionary of Contemporaries. Fifth biennial edition. New York: W. F. 
Brainard. 

Brechin, Gray. 1999. Imperial San Francisco. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press. 

Bristow, B. H. 1876. Treasury Secretary B. H. Bristow to Senator P. W. Hitchcock, 
January 15, 1876. Alaska File of the Office of the Secretary of the 
Treasury, 1868-1903. RG 22, microfilm M720, roll 3, U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service. NARA. 

Bryant, Charles. 1870. “On the habits of the Northern Fur Seal ( Callorhinus ursinus 

Gray), with a Description of the Pribyloff Group of Islands.” Bulletin of the 
Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College in Cambridge 2(1): 
89-108. 

-. 1890. “On the Fur Seal Islands." The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, 

April. 

Buchanan, L. M. 1929. “History of the Fur-Seal Industry of the Pribilof Islands.” 
Master’s thesis, Univ. of Washington, Seattle. 

Buescher, Craig, Mary Buescher, Jock Hubbell, Jean Hubbell, George Peter, and 
Dorothy Skalka. n.d. Deweese Centennial 1886-1986. Lawrence, NE: 
Ostdiek. 

Busch, Briton Cooper. 1985. The War Against the Seals: A History of the North 
American Seal Fishery. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Univ. Press. 

Butler, Margaret Manor. 1949. The Lakewood Story. New York: Stratford House. 

Buynitzky, Stephen Nestor. 1871. English-Aleutian Vocabulary. Sail [San] Francisco: 

Alta California Book and Job Printing House. [A copy is located at 
Loussac Library, Anchorage, AI<] 

Byington, Lewis Francis, ed. 1931. The History of San Francisco. Chicago: S. J. Clarke. 

Cabot, C. E. 1895. “A Chapter of Alaska.” New England Magazine 11, no. 5 (January): 
588-96. 

California Academy of Sciences. 1954. “George Haley, 1870-1954.” Academy News 
Letter 173 (May). 

Callahan, James Morton. 1967. American Foreign Policy in Canadian Relations. NY: 
Cooper Square. 


644 





Selected Bibliography 


Campbell, Charles S. Jr. 1967. “The Anglo-American Crisis in the Bering Sea, 1890- 
1891.” In Sherwood, ed., Alaska and its History, 315-40. 

Campbell, W. Joseph. 2001. Yellow Journalism: Puncturing the Myths, Defining the 
Legacies. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. 

Central Bering Sea Fishermen’s Association. 2004. Community Development Plan 

(CDP) for 2003-2005 Multi-Species Community Development Quota 

(CDQ) Program: Third Quarter Report 2004. St. Paul Island, AI<: Central 
Bering Sea Fishermen’s Assn. 

-. 2005. Community Development Plan (CDP) for 2003-2005 Multi-Species 

Community Development Quota (CDQ) Program: Third Quarter Report 
2005. St. Paul Island, AI<: Central Bering Sea Fishermen’s Assn. 

Chambers, John Whiteclay, II. 1980. “Andrews, Roy Chapman.” In Garraty, ed., 
Dictionary of American Biography. Supplement Six, 1956-1960. 

City of Baltimore. 1892. Guide to Baltimore. Baltimore: J. Murphy. 

Clark, George A. “Guide to the fur seal controversy papers, 1892-1969.” Collection no. 
Ml 18. Special Collections. Stanford Univ., CA. 

Cocke, Albert. 1974. “Dr. Samuel J. Call.” Alaska Journal 4 (3): 181-8. 

Cohen, Felix S. 1945. Handbook of Federal Indian Law. Washington, DC: GPO. 

Colyer, Vincent. 1869. Report of the Hon. Vincent Colyer, United States Special Indian 
Commissioner, on the Indian Tribes and their Surroundings in Alaska 
Territory, from Personal Observation and Inspection in 1869. File 19633B. 
Bancroft Library, Univ. of California, Berkeley. Also in U.S. Congress, 
House, Letter from the Secretary of the Interior Concerning Fur-Seal 
Fisheries of Alaska, 1870. 

Coues, Elliott. 1875. “The Ornithology of the Pribylov Islands.” In Elliott, A Report 
Upon the Conditions of Affairs in the Territory of Alaska, 168-212. 

-. 1903. Key to North American Birds. 5th ed. 2 vols. Boston: Dana Estes. 

-. Papers. RU 7177, box 2, folder 39. SIA, Washington, DC. 

Cox, Allan, David M. Hopkins, and G. Brent Dalrymple. 1966. “Geomagnetic 

Polarity Epochs: Pribilof Islands, Alaska.” Geological Society of America 
Bulletin IT (9): 883-909. 

Crossen, K. J., D. R. Yesner, D. W. Veltre, and R. W. Graham. 2005. “5,700-year- 

old Mammoth Remains from the Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Last Outpost 
of North American Megafauna.” Presented at the annual meeting of 
the Geological Society of America, Salt Lake City, UT. Abstracts with 
Programs 37 (7): 463. 

Crowley, Joseph B., and Joseph Murray. 1894. “Letter to Secretary of Treasury, J. G. 

Carlisle, April 26, 1894.” U.S. Congress. House. 53rd Cong., 2nd sess. H. 
Ex. Doc. 207. In U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Alaskan Seal 


645 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


Fisheries: Compilation of Documents and Other Printed Matter Relating 
Thereto. Vol. 4 

Culbertson, Richard K. Richard G. and Mary S. Culbertson Papers, 1924-1931. MS 
4-22-9. Alaska State Library Historical Collections, Juneau. 

Curry, James C. Papers. Box 137-141. National Anthropological Archives. Suitland, 
MD. 

Cutter, William Richard, ed. 1914. New England Families Genealogical Memorial: 

A Record of the Achievements of Tier People in the Making of 
Commonwealths and the Founding of a Nation. Vol. 3. NY: Lewis 
Historical. 

Dali, William H. 1870. Alaska and its Resources. Boston: Lee and Shepard. 

-. 1878. “On the Remains of the Later Prehistoric Man Obtained from Caves in 

the Catherina Archipelago, Alaska Territory, and Especially from the 
Caves of the Aleutian Islands.” Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge. 
Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. 

-. 1884. “On Masks, Labrets and Certain Aboriginal Customs with an Inquiry 

into the Bearing of their Geographic Distribution.” In Smithsonian 
Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Annual Report, vol. 3, pt. 2. 
Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. Papers, 1839-1927. Correspondence. RU 7073, box 10, folder 10. SIA, 

Washington, DC. 

Daughters of the American Revolution, Michigan Society. 1933. Michigan Pioneer 
Experiences 1710-1880 with Genealogical Data and Anecdotes. 
Marquette, MI: Marquette Chapter, Daughters of the American 
Revolution. 

Davey, Stuart P. 1963. Reindeer and Their Management on St. Paul Island, Alaska. U.S. 
Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. Washington, DC: GPO. 

Day, Steven R. 2000. A Journey into the History of Canada and the United States. 
Mukilteo, WA: Steven R. Day. 

DeArmond, R. N., ed. 1981. Lady Franklin Visits Sitka, Alaska 1870: The Journal of 
Sophia Cracroft, Sir John Franklin’s Niece. Anchorage: Alaska Historical 
Society. 

Desmond, Alice Curtis. 1944. The Sea Cats. New York: Macmillan. 

Dmytryshyn, Basil, and E. A. P. Crownhart-Vaughan, eds. 1979. The End of Russian 
America: Captain P. N. Golovin’s Last Report, 1862. Portland: Oregon 
Historical Society. 

Dmytryshyn, Basil, E. A. P. Crownhart-Vaughan, and Thomas Vaughan, eds. 1988. 

Russian Penetration of the North Pacific Ocean, 1700-1799. Vol. 2, To 
Siberia and Russian America. Portland: Oregon Historical Press. 


646 







Selected Bibliography 


Donald, David Herbert. 1960. Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War. New 
York: Ballantine Books. 

du Bellet, Louise Pecquet. 1907. Some Prominent Virginia Families. Vol. 4. Lynchburg, 
VA: J. B. Bell. 

Dundes, Alan. 1966. “The American Concepts of Folklore.” Journal of the Folklore 
Institute 3 (3). 

Dunn, Robert. 1906. “Alaska, the Seal-Warder [sic], and the Japanese Raiders.” Flarper’s 
Weekly 50 (May). 

Dyson, George. 1986. Baidarka: The Kayak. Anchorage, Alaska: Alaska Northwest 
Books. 

Elliott, Clark A. 1996. History of Science in the United States: A Chronology and 
Research Guide. New York: Garland. 

Elliott, Franklin Reuben. 1854. Elliott’s Fruit Book; or, the American Fruit-Grower’s 
Guide in Orchard and Garden. New York: C. M. Saxton. 

Elliott, Henry Wood. 1873. Report on the Prybilov Group, or Seal Islands of Alaska. 

Washington, DC: GPO. unpaginated. [Preble and McAtee (1923, 123) 
cited Elliott’s 1873 report as “Elliott, Henry Wood, and Elliott Coues. 

1874. Report on the Pribilov Group or Seal Islands of Alaska, by Henry W. 
Elliott, assistant agent, Treasury Department. Published by Treas. Dept.; 
129 p. (not numbered) 2 maps, 45 pis.; in appendix is an article entitled 
‘Ornithology of the Pribilov Islands, by Dr. Elliott Coues, U. S. A. (based 
on Mr. H. W. Elliott’s manuscript and collections).’... Bears date of 1873 
on title page, and 1875 on cover, but was issued early in 1874.” Preble 
and McAtee’s assertion that Elliot’s 1873 publication was printed in 
1875 or 1874 without illustrations could not be substantiated. However, 
the authors have examained a hardcover version of A Report Upon the 
Conditions of Affairs in the Territory of Alaska with “1874” printed on the 
cover spine, but with a cover page dated “1875” and without illustrations. 
No version of this document could be found that included illustrations.] 

-. 1875. A Report Upon the Conditions of Affairs in the Territory of Alaska. 

Washington, DC: GPO. [See preceeding reference for additional insight; 
an unpaginated version of A Report Upon the Conditions of Affairs in the 
Territory of Alaska was published in 1874 without illustrations. Preble 
and McAteee (1923, 123) described this report by H. W. Elliott and Elliott 
Coues as being reprinted in 1874 without illustrations and unpaginated. 
As with the preceeding reference, the authors have not seen an illustrated 
version of the 1875 report. Also, see Scheffer et al., 1984, 55.] 

-. 1878. “Leo Marinus, The Sea-King.” Scribner’s Monthly, October. 


647 








Pribilof Islands: The People 


-. n.d. [1880?]. The Seal Islands of Alaska. Washington, DC: GPO. [Includes 

a letter of transmittal from Elliott to the Superintendent of the Tenth 
Census, Francis A. Walker, dated March 31, 1880; possible proof copy.] 

-. 1881. “The History and Present Condition of the Fishery Industries: The Seal 

Islands of Alaska.” In Report on the Tenth Census of the United States. 
Washington, DC: GPO. Reprinted, with few changes and the same pagi¬ 
nation, as U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries, Special Bulletin 176, 
1882; again issued as Misc. Doc. 42, pt. 8. 47th Cong., 2nd sess., 1884, 
with three other reports and the addition of an index. Also reprinted as 
The Seal Islands of Alaska, Fimestone Press, 1976. 

-. 1882. A Monograph of the Pribylov Group, or Seal-Islands of Alaska. 

Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1882. A Monograph of the Seal-Islands of Alaska. U.S. Fish Commission Special 

Bulletin 176. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1886. Our Arctic Province. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 

-. 1896. Report on the Condition of the Fur-Seal Fisheries of Alaska, Together with 

All Maps and Illustrations Accompanying Said Report. U.S. Congress, 
House. 54th Cong., 1st sess. H. Doc. 175. Washington, DC: Also in 
U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., 1898. Seal and Salmon 
Fisheries and General Resources of Alaska. Vol. 3, 311-560. [Elliott’s letter 
of transmittal of his report was dated November 17, 1890.] 

-. 1976. The Seal Islands of Alaska. City: Fimestone Press. Originally printed in 

1881 by GPO. 

Elliott, Henry W., and Andrew F. Gallagher. 1913. Reports and Exhibits of the Special 
Agents of the House Committee on Expenditures in the Department of 
Commerce Upon the Condition of the Fur-Seal Herd of Alaska and the 
Conduct of the Public Business on the Pribilof Islands, to the Chairman J. 
H. Rothermel. Washington, DC: GPO. 

Elliott, H. W., and Washburn Maynard. 1898. “Report by H. W. Elliott and Fieut. W. 

Maynard, U.S.N., on the Fur-Seal Fisheries, Etc., of the Pribilof Islands, 
with Comments on Elliott’s and Maynard’s Reports by D. S. Jordan.” 

In U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Seal and Salmon Fisheries and General 
Resources of Alaska, vol. 3. Washington, DC: GPO. 

Elliott, Joseph P. 1897. A History of Evansville and Vanderburgh County, Indiana. 
Evansville, IN: Keller. 

Ellis, Franklin Ellis. 1870. History of Genesee County, Michigan, with Illustrations and 
Biographical Sketches. Philadelphia: Everts & Abbott. 

Ellsworth, Lyman R. 1952. Guys on Ice. New York: David McKay. 

Enckell, Maria Jarlsdotter. 2004. “Commonly Known Finnish and Baltic Names 

Found in the Index to Baptisms, Marriages and Deaths in the Archives 


648 












Selected Bibliography 


of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in Alaska 1816-1866.” 
Godenhjelm Project. Sitka Lutheran Church, Sitka, AK. 

Ennis, William H. 1868. “Reminiscence of Cruise of the Caldera," in Ennis’ Journals 

and Letters: ms and ALS [1865-1869]. Library manuscript MS662. 14 pp. 
California Historical Society, San Francisco, CA. 

Erskine, Wilson Fiske. 1962. “Captain Niebaum of Alaska.” Explorers Journal 49 (3): 
5-12. 

Erwin, Marie H. 1946. Wyoming Historical Blue Book: A Legal & Political History, 

Wyoming 1868-1943. Denver: Bradford-Robinson. Reprint (1974) edited 
by Virginia C. Trenholm. 

Essig, E. O., Adele Ogden, and Clarence John DuFour. 1991. Fort Ross, California 
Outpost of Russian Alaska 1812-1841. Edited by Richard A. Pierce. 
Kingston, ON, and Fairbanks, AI<: Limestone Press. 

Euneau, H. 1965. “Sealing Report (December 22, 1965).” Fur-Seal Archives, under the 
subheading Education. Library of NOAA National Marine Mammal 
Laboratory. Seattle, WA. 

Evans, Stephen H. 1949. The United States Coast Guard, 1790-1915: A Definitive 

History (With a Postscript, 1915-1950). Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute 
Press. 

Evermann, Barton Warren. 1912. Alaska Fisheries and Fur Industries in 1911. U.S. 
Bureau of Fisheries Doc. 766. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1913. Alaska Fisheries and Fur Industries in 1912. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries Doc. 

780. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1914. Alaska Fisheries and Fur Industries in 1913. Appendix 2 to the Report of 

the U.S. Commissioner of Fisheries for 1913. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries Doc. 
797. Washington, DC: GPO. 

Falconer, Samuel. Naturalization records, filed Burleigh County, North Dakota, 

April 12, 1883. State Historical Society of North Dakota. North Dakota 
Heritage Center, Bismarck. 

Farrar, Victor John. 1966. The Annexation of Russian America to the United States. 
New York: Russell and Russell. 

Fedorova, Svetlana G. 1971. Russkoye Naseleniye Alaski i Kalifornii: Konetz XVIII 

veka-1867god [The Russian Population in Alaska and California: The End 
of the Eighteenth Century-1867]. Moscow: Izd. Nauka. 

-. 1973. The Russian Population in Alaska and California: Late 18th 

Century-1867. Translated and edited by Richard A. Pierce and Alton S. 
Donnelly. Materials for the Study of Alaska History no. 4. Kingston, ON: 
Limestone Press. 376 p., illus., maps. 


649 







Pribilof Islands: The People 


Flannery, Tim. 2001. The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and 
its Peoples. New York: Atlantic Monthly. 

Foote, Don C., Victor Fischer, and George W. Rogers. 1968. St. Paul Community 
Study: An Economic and Social Analysis of St. Paul, Pribilof Islands, 
Alaska. College, AI<: Univ. of Alaska Institute of Social, Economic and 
Government Research. 

Forbes, Alan. 1918. Some Merchants and Sea Captains of Old Boston; Being a 

Collection of Sketches of Notable Men and Mercantile Houses Prominent 
During the Early Half of the Nineteenth Century in the Commerce and 
Shipping of Boston. Boston: State Street Trust. 

Foreman, Carolyn Thomas. 1935. “General Eli Lundy Huggins.” Chronicles of 
Oklahoma 13 (3): 255-65. 

Foster, John W. 1909. Diplomatic Memoirs. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 

Frechin, Donald P. 1951. “The Lepidopterists’ News '.’Journal of the Lepidopterists’ 
Society 5 (6-7): 66. 

Friborg, Arnold E. 1895. “Memoirs of Saint George (Scrap Book) 1935-36.” 

[Photocopy in possession of the author.] 

-.1936. “Annual Medical Report of St. George Island, Alaska (April 6).” Letter to 

the Commissioner of Fisheries through the Superintendent. Fur-Seal 
Archives. Library of NOAA National Marine Mammal Laboratory. 

Seattle, WA. 

Garfield, Brian. 1995. The Thousand Mile War: World War II in Alaska and the 
Aleutians. Fairbanks: Univ. of Alaska Press. 

Garraty, John A., ed. 1980. Dictionary of American Biography. Supplement Six, 1956- 
1960. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 

Gay, James Thomas. 1973. “Henry W. Elliott: Crusading Conservationist.” Alaska 
Journal 3 (4): 211-6. 

Geoghegan, Richard Henry, and Fredericka I. Martin. 1944. The Aleut Language: The 
Elements of Aleut Grammar with a Dictionary in Two Parts Containing 
Basic Vocabularies of Aleut and English. Washington, DC: GPO. 

Glenn, James R. 1991. “The Sound Recordings of John P. Harrington.” Anthropological 
Linguistics 33 (4): 357-66. 

Golla, Victor. 1991. “John P. Harrington and His Legacy.” Anthropological Linguistics 
(33) 4: 337-49. 

Golovin, Pavel Nikolaevich. 1979. The End of Russian America: Captain P. N. Golovin’s 
Last Report. Translated, and with introduction and notes by Basil 
Dmytryshyn and E. A. P. Crownhart-Vaughn. Portland: Oregon Historical 
Society. 


650 





Selected Bibliography 


-. 1983. Civil and Savage Encounters. Translated and edited by Basil Dmytryshyn 

and E. A. P. Crownhart-Vaughan. Portland: Oregon Historical Society. 
Originally published as “Iz putevykh pisem.” In Morskoi Shornik [Naval 
Anthology] 66 (5): 101-82 and 66 (6): 275-340. 

Gosnell, Harpur Allen. 1937. Before the Mast in the Clippers: Composed in Large Part 
of the Diaries of Charles A. Abbey Kept While at Sea in the Years 1856 to 
1860. New York: Derrydale. 

Graburn, Nelson H. H., Molly Lee, and Jean-Loup Rousselot. 1996. Catalogue 

Raisonne of the Alaska Commercial Company Collection. Berkeley: Univ. 
of California Press. 

Graham, Judith. 1994. Current Biography Yearbook 1994. New York: H. W. Wilson. 

Grainger, Percy Aldridge. 1996. Lukannon. Music, with words by Rudyard Kipling. 

Realized by Barry Peter Ould. Bardic edition BD0619. London: Percy 
Grainger Society/Estate. 

Grandson, Oscar H. 1931. “Agent’s Annual Report.” Submitted to the Commissioner 
of Fisheries (April 17). Fur-Seal Archives. Library of NOAA National 
Marine Mammal Laboratory. Seattle, WA. 

Greely, Andrew Washington. 1909. Handbook of Alaska: Its Resources, Products, and 
Attractions. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 

Grinnell, George Bird. 1994. Alaska 1899: Essays from the Harriman Expedition. 
Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press. 

Guthrie, R. D. 2004. “Radiocarbon Evidence of Mid-Holocene Mammoths Stranded on 
an Alaskan Bering Sea Island.” Nature 429: 746-9. 

Hall, Andy. 2007. “One f or two?” Alaska Magazine 73 (1): 4. 

Hallum, John. 1887. Biographical and Pictorial History of Arkansas. Albany, NY: Weed, 
Parsons. 

Hanna, G Dallas. 1918. “The Alaskan Fur Seal.” PhD thesis, George Washington Univ., 
Washington, DC. 

-. 1919. “Geological Notes on the Pribilof Islands, Alaska, with an Account of 

the Fossil Diatoms.” American Journal of Science Ser. 4, 48 (September): 
216-24. 

-. 1923. “Random Notes on Alaska Snow Buntings.” The Condor 25, no. 2 (March- 

April): 60-65. 

-. 1923. “Rare Mammals of the Pribilof Islands, Alaska.” Journal of Mammalogy 4, 

no. 4 (November): 209-15. 

-. 1960. A Comparison of Conditions on St. Paul Island During 1913-1920 with 

the Present. Belvedere Scientific Fund. [This 24-page, soft-cover paper 
appears to have been privately published in a limited edition of possibly 
only two copies, per a suggestion in a cover letter to the document sent 


651 









Pribilof Islands: The People 


to Victor Scheffer. The authors found this document in the reprint files 
of the Library of NOAA National Marine Mammal Laboratory, Seattle, 
WA.] 

-. 1960. Random Comparisons of St. Paul Island as Observed by Dr. G Dallas 

Hanna after an Absence of 40 Years. August 5. 6 pp. Fur Seal Archives. 
Library of NOAA National Marine Mammal Laboratory. Seattle, WA. 
Unpublished. 

-. 2008. The Alaska Fur-Seal Islands. Edited by John A. Lindsay. NOAA. 

Washington, DC: GPO. [Published in three separate bound editions— 
buckram, cloth, and leather covers—with a total printing of 750.] 

Harting, J. E. 1875. The Fauna of the Prybilov Islands. Abridged from Henry W. Elliott’s 
Report on the Prybilov Group, or Seal Islands of Alaska. London: Woodfall 
and Kinder. [Reprinted from the Natural History Columns of The Field 
for private circulation.] 

Harvard University Press. 1913. Harvard University Alumni Directory. Boston: 
Harvard Univ. Press. 

Haycox, Stephen. 2002. Alaska, An American Colony. Seattle: Univ. of Washington 
Press. 

Hays, Alice N. 1952. David Starr Jordan, a Bibliography of His Writings, 1871-1931, 
with a Personal Appreciation by Robert E. Swain. Stanford, CA: Stanford 
University. 

Healy, M. A. 1889. Report of the Cruise of the Revenue Marine Steamer Corwin in the 
Arctic Ocean in the Year 1884. Washington, DC: GPO. Also published 
under separate cover as The Miscellaneous Documents of the House of 
Representatives for the First Session of the Fiftieth Congress, 1887-88. Vol. 
19. U.S. Congress, House. Washington, DC: GPO, 1890.] 

Heeney, Canon Bertal, ed. 1920. Leaders of the Canadian Church. Vol. 2, Robert 
McDonald. Toronto: Musson. 

Her Majesty’s Stationary Office. 1893. Counter-Case Presented on the Part of the 
Government of Her Britannic Majesty to the Tribunal of Arbitration 
Constituted under Article I of the Treaty Concluded at Washington on 
the 29th February, 1892, between Her Britannic Majesty and the United 
States of America. No. 3. London: Harrison and Sons. 

Herringshaw, Mae Felts. 1916. Herringshaw’s City Blue Book of Biography: Chicagoans 
of 1916, Ten Thousand Biographies. Chicago: Clark J. Herringshaw. 

Hinckley, Ted C. 1972. Vie Americanization of Alaska, 1867-1897. Palo Alto, CA: 
Pacific Books. 

Hoagland, Alison, I<. 1997. “Russian Churches, American Houses, Aleut People: 

Converging Cultures in the Pribilof Islands.” In Images of an American 


652 






Selected Bibliography 


Land, edited by Thomas Carter, 129-49. Albuquerque: Univ. of New 
Mexico Press. 

Holbo, Paul S. 1983. Tarnished Expansion: Vie Alaska Scandal, the Press, and 
Congress, 1867-1871. Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press. 

Holm, Theo. 1920. “James M. Macoun.” The Botanical Gazette (Chicago, Ill.) 70: 240. 

Holmes, Thomas, Horace Carpenter, and Samuel G. Ives. 1881. History of 
Washtenaw County, Michigan. Chicago: Chas. C. Chapman. 

Honcharenko, Agapius. Publisher, Alaska Herald, 1867-73 (San Francisco, CA). 

Collection and scrapbook. Bancroft Library, Univ. of California, Berkeley. 

Hope, Harriet. 1988. “The Aleuts’ Russian Heritage.” Alaska 54 (10): 35, 65, 68, 71, 73. 

Hopkins, David M. 1966. “Reports: Pleistocene Glaciation on St. George, Pribilof 
Islands.” Science (April): 343-45. 

Hornaday, William T. 1931. Thirty Years War for Wildlife: Gains and Losses in the 
Thankless Task. Congressional edition. Stamford, CT: Gillespie Bros. 

Howay, F. W. 1914. British Columbia from the Earliest Times to the Present. Vol. 2. 
Chicago: S. J. Clarke. 

Howes, Joshua Crowell. 1892. Genealogy of the Howes Family in America. Yarmouth, 
MA: F. Hallett. 

Howes, Osborne Jr. 1870. “The Fur Seal Fishery in Alaska.” In Old and New. Vol. 1. 
Boston: H. O. Houghton. 

Hudson, Ray, ed. 1986. People of the Aleutian Islands. Alaska Historical Commission 
Studies in History no. 196. Unalaska, AI<: Unalaska City School District. 

Hudson, Raymond L. 2007. Family After All: Alaska’s Jesse Lee Home. Vol. 1, Unalaska, 
1889-1925. Walnut Creek, CA: Hardscratch Press. 

Huggins, Eli Lundy. 1981. Kodiak and Afognak Life, 1868-1870. Kingston, ON: 
Limestone Press. 

-. Papers, 1862-1929. Manuscript 81/51c, box 1. Bancroft Library, Univ. of 

California, Berkeley. [Letters also at Oklahoma Historical Society 
Collection, Oklahoma City], 

Hunt, G. L. Jr., and G. V. Byrd Jr. 1999. “Marine Bird Populations and Carrying 

Capacity of the Eastern Bering Sea.” In Dynamics of the Bering Sea, edited 
by T. R. Loughlin and I<. Ohtani, 631-50. Fairbanks: Univ. of Alaska Sea 
Grant. 

Hurd, Roy H. “Pribilof Management Report for August 1967.” Fur-Seal Archives. 

Library of NOAA National Marine Mammal Laboratory, Seattle, WA. 

Huseas, Marion McMillan. 1991. Sweetwater Gold: Wyoming’s Gold Rush, 1867-1871. 
Cheyenne, WY: Cheyenne Corral of Westerners International. 


653 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


Hutchinson, John W. 1896. Story of the Hutchinsons: Tribe of Jesse. Boston: Lee and 
Shepard. 

Jackson, Sheldon. 1896. “Report on Introduction of Domestic Reindeer into Alaska 
with Maps and Illustrations, 1895.’’ In Seal and Salmon fisheries and 
General Resources of Alaska. Vol. 3, Washington, DC: GPO. [See U.S. 
Congress. Senate. 54th Cong., 1st sess. S. Doc. 111.] 

-.1898. “Report on Education in Alaska, 1885-1895 (Decennial Review of 

Education in Alaska, 1885-1895).” In Seal and Salmon fisheries and 
General Resources of Alaska. Vol. 3, Washington, DC: GPO. [See U.S. 
Congress. Senate. 54th Cong., 1st sess. S. Doc. 111.] 

-. Papers. “Finding Aide to Record Group 239, Background Notes.” Philadelphia: 

Presbyterian Historical Society. 

Jacobsen, Johan Adrian. 1977. Alaskan Voyage 1881-1883: An Expedition to the 
Northwest Coast of America. Translated by Erna Gunther from the 
German text of Adrian Woldt. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press. 

James, James Alton. 1942. The First Scientific Exploration of Russian America and the 
Purchase of Alaska. Chicago: Northwestern Univ. Press. 

Jefferson County Historical Society. History of U.S. Revenue Cutter Rush with de¬ 
scription card and photographs. Bert Kellogg, #1697, box B, folder 2. Port 
Townsend, WA. 

Jeffery, Edmond C. 1955 .Alaska: Who’s Here, What’s Doing, Who’s Doing It, 1955. 
Anchorage, AI<: Jeffery. 

Jeffries, N. L. 1870. “Letter dated January 25, 1870, from Jeffries, attorney for the 

Alaska Commercial Company, to Hon. Nathan F. Dixon, chairman of the 
House Committee on Commerce, relative to the affairs on the Pribilof 
Islands.” In U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Alaskan Seal 
Fisheries: Compilation of Documents and Other Printed Matter Relating 
Thereto, Vol. 1. 

Jensen, Ronald. 1975. The Alaska Purchase and Russian-American Relations. Seattle: 
Univ. of Washington Press. 

Jochelson, Waldemar. 1933. History, Ethnography and Anthropology of the Aleut. 
Washington, DC: Carnegie Institute. 

-. 1990. Unangam Ungiikangin Kayux Tunusangin: Unangam Uniikangis Anna 

Tunuzangis: Aleut Tales and Narratives, Collected 1909-1910 by Walde¬ 
mar Jochelson. Edited by Knut Bergsland and Moses L. Dirks. Fairbanks: 
Alaska Native Language Center, Univ. of Alaska. 

John, Betty. 1955. Seloe, The Story of a Fur Seal. Cleveland: World. 

-. 1987. Libby: The Sketches, Letters and Journal of Libby Beaman, Recorded in the 

Pribilof Islands, 1879-1880. Tulsa, OI<: Council Oak Books. 


654 







Selected Bibliography 


Johnson, Allen, ed. 1977. Dictionary of American Biography. Supplement 5, 1951- 
1955. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 

Johnson, Luther B. 1949. Eighty Years of It 1869-1949. Randolph, VT: Haggett. 

Johnson, Rossiter, and John Howard Brown, eds. 1904. The Twentieth Century 
Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans: Brief Biographies of 
Authors, Administrators, Clergymen, Commanders, Editors, Engineers, 
Jurists, Merchants, Officials, Philanthropists, Scientists, Statesmen, and 
Others Who Are Making American History. Boston, MA: Biographical 
Society. 

Johnston, Edward C. 1943. A Report on Pribilof Island Conditions in 1943. RG 22, box 
38, records 1923-69. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. NARA. 

Johnston, Edward. 1950. “Lepidoptera of the Pribilof Islands, Alaska.” The 
Lepidopterists News 4 (3): 27-30. 

Johnston, Samuel P. 1940. Alaska Commercial Company 1868-1940: A More or Less 
Documented History, Evidenced by Papers from Governmental Files and 
Books; By Old Letters from Company Files; By Newspaper Articles; By 
Memories of Officials and Employes [sic] of Long Standing. City unknown: 
Edwin E. Watcher, printer. [Found in the reprint files of the Library of 
National Marine Mammal Laboratory, Seattle, WA.] 

Jones, Dorothy Knee. 1980. A Century of Servitude: Pribilof Aleuts under U.S. Rule. 
Washington, DC: Univ. Press of America. 

Jones, Dorothy M., and John R. Wood. 1975. An Aleut Bibliography. Fairbanks: Univ. 

of Alaska, Institute of Social, Economic and Government Research. 

Jones, Ernest Lester. 1915. Report of Alaska Investigations in 1914. U.S. Bureau of 
Fisheries. Washington, DC: GPO. 

Jordan, David Starr. 1896. “Observations on the Fur Seals of the Pribilof Islands 
(Preliminary Report).” In U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, 
Alaskan Seal Fisheries: Compilation of Documents and Other Printed 
Matter Relating Thereto, Vol. 6. 

-. 1897. Matka and Kotik. San Francisco: Whitaker and Ray. 

-. 1898. “Observations on the Fur Seals of the Pribilof Islands (2nd Preliminary 

Report).” In U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Alaskan Seal 
Fisheries, Compilation of Documents and Other Printed Matter Relating 
Thereto, Vol. 6. 

-, ed. 1898. ^e Fur Seals and Fur-Seal Islands of the North Pacific Ocean. 4 pts. 

U.S. Treasury Department Doc. 2017. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1922. The Days of a Man. 2 vols. Yonkers-on-Hudson, NY: World Book. 

-. Papers. RU 7176, box 4, folder 4, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. SIA, 

Washington, DC. 


655 









Pribilof Islands: The People 


Karr, Heywood Walter. 1887. Shores and Alps of Alaska. London: Sampson Low, 
Marston, Searle, Rivington. 

Kenyon, Karl W. “Official Memorandum. March 14, 1956, St. Paul Island, AK, to Dr. 

Robert C. Miller, Director California Academy of Sciences.” Fur-Seal 
Archives. Library of NOAA National Marine Mammal Laboratory. 
Seattle, WA. 

Khlebnikov, Kiril Timofeevich. 1994. Notes on Russian America. Parts 2-5, Kad’iak, 
Unalashka, Atkha, The Pribylovs. Edited by Richard Pierce and translated 
by Marina Ramsay. Kingston, ON, and Fairbanks, AI<: Limestone Press. 

Killey, Gwen L. 1988. “Opening the Door to Alaska: The Cruises of the Revenue Cutter 
Thomas Corwin .” Naval History Magazine 2 (4): 23-27. 

Killikelly, Sarah H. 1906. The History of Pittsburgh: Its Rise And Progress. Pittsburgh, 
PA: B. C. and Gordon Montgomery. 

Kincaid, Trevor. 1901. “Harriman Alaska Expedition.” Mazama 2 (April): 70-74. 

King, Robert E. 1994. “The Pribilof Islands in the 1870s: The Stereo-Photographs of Dr. 
Hugh H. McIntyre.” Alaska History 9 (1): 38-45. 

-. 1994. “The Pribilof Islands in 1871: The Story of Mrs. Hugh H. McIntyre and 

Her Remarkable Letters.” Paper presented at the 21st annual meeting 
of the Alaska Anthropological Association. Historical Anthropology 
Session, Juneau, AI<. 

-. 1998. “More than the Murder on Kodiak: The McIntyre Family in Alaska, 1868- 

1890’s.” Paper presented to the Kodiak Historical Society, Kodiak, AK. 

Kingsbury, George W. 1915. History of Dakota Territory. Vol. 5. Chicago: J. J. Clark. 

Kipling, Rudyard. 1894. “The White Seal.” In The Jungle Book. London: Macmillan. 

-. 1894. “Lukannon.” In The Jungle Book. Macmillan: London. [Composer Percy 

Grainger (1882-1961) set the words of Lukannon to music, December 
1898.] 

-. 1896. “The Rhyme of the Three Sealers.” In The Seven Seas. New York: D. 

Appleton. 

Kirtland, John C., and David Coffin Jr. 1981. The Relocation and Internment of the 
Aleuts During World War II. 8 vols. plus master index. Anchorage, AI<: 
Aleutian/Pribilof Islands Association. 

Kitaysky, A. S., E. V. Kitaiskaia, J. F. Piatt, and J. C. Wingfield. 2006. “A Mechanistic 
Link between Chick Diet and Decline in Seabirds?” Proceedings of the 
Royal Society B 273 (1585): 445-50. 

Kitchener, Lois Delano. 1954. Flag Over the North. Seattle: Superior. 

Kohlhoff, Dean. 1995. When the Wind Was a River. Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press. 

Kolpan, Steven. 1999. A Sense of Place. New York: Routledge. 


656 








Selected Bibliography 


Krasheninnikov, S. P. 1962. The History of Kamtschatka and the Kurilski Islands, with 
the Countries Adjacent. Chicago: Quadrangle Books. Originally published 
as Opisanie Zemli Kamtschatki sotschennoja (St. Petersburg, 1754). A 
second revised edition was published in English, translated by James 
Grieve (Gloucester: R. Raikes). 

Krause, Aurel. 1956. The Tlingit Indians. Translated by Erna Gunther. Seattle: Univ. of 
Washington Press. Originally published as Die Tlinkit-Indianer, 1885. 

Kubijovye, Volodymyr, ed. 1988. “The Rev. Agapius Honcharenko, 1832-1916.” In An 
Enycylopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto. 

Lain, B. D. 1976. “The Decline of Russian America’s Colonial Society.” Western 
Historical Quarterly 7 (2): 143-53. 

Laird, Carabeth. 1975. Encounter with an Angry God. Banning, CA: Malki Museum. 

Landis, Arthur. 1967. The Abraham Lincoln Brigade. New York: Citadel. 

Langdon, Steve J. 2002. The Native People of Alaska. 4th ed. Anchorage, AI<: Greatland 
Graphics. 

Langsdorff, Georg Heinrich von. 1993. Remarks and Observations on a Voyage 

around the World from 1803-1807. Vols. 1-2. Translated by Victoria Joan 
Moessner and edited by Richard A. Pierce. Kingston, ON, and Fairbanks, 
AI<: Limestone Press. 471 p., illus., map. Originally published as 
Bemerkungen aus einer Reise um die Welt (Frankfurt am Mayn: Friedrich 
Williams, 1812). 

Lantis, Margaret. 1950. “The Reindeer Industry in Alaska.” Arctic 3, 27-44. 

-, ed. 1970. Ethnohistory in Southwestern Alaska and Southern Yukon: Method 

and Content. Studies in Anthropology 7. Lexington: Univ. Press of 
Kentucky. 

Laughlin, William S. 1980. Aleuts: Survivors of the Bering Land Bridge. New York: 

Holt, Rinehart, Winston. 

Lee, Molly. 1998. “The Alaska Commercial Company.” Pacific Northwest Quarterly 89 
(2): 59-64. 

Leonard, Mary Hall. 1899. “Old Rochester and Her Daughter Towns.” New England 
Magazine, July. 

Lewis Publishing Company. 1891. Memorial and Biographical History of Northern 
California. Chicago: Lewis. 

Library of Congress. 1859. “Journal of the House of Representatives, 1859-1860.” Vol 
56. [While this volume lists 1859 as its publication date, this book incor¬ 
porates proceedings through April 13, I860.] 

Lincoln, William Ensign. 1930. Some Descendants of Stephen Lincoln. (NY: 
Knickerbocker). 


657 




Pribilof Islands: The People 


Lindsay, Betty A., and John A. Lindsay. 2009. Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Genealogy and 
Census. NOAA Tech. Memo. NOS ORR 18. 

Lindsay, John A., Gina Rappaport, and Betty A. Lindsay. 2009. Pribilof Islands, 
Alaska: Guide to Photographs and Illustrations. NOAA Tech. Memo. 
NOS ORR 20. 

Lindsay, John A., and Karla Sclater. 2009. Pribilof Islands, Alaska: An Annotated 
Bibliography. NOAA Tech. Memo. NOS ORR 22. 

Lipke, John W. 1937. “Report of the Agent and Caretaker St. Paul Island, Alaska, 
March 31.” Fur-Seal Archives. Library of NOAA National Marine 
Mammal Laboratory. Seattle, WA. 

Lucey, William Leo. 1957. The Catholic Church in Maine. Francestown, NH: Marshall 
Jones. 

Macoun, J. M. 1897. “The Fur Seal of the North Pacific.” Transactions of Ottawa 
Literary and Scientific Society 1: 63-74. 

Malloy, Mary Gordon, and Marian W. Jacobs. 1986. Genealogical Abstracts, 

Montgomery County Sentinel, 1855-1899, Rockville, MD: Montgomery 
County Historical Society. 

Malone, Dumas. 1964. Dictionary of American Biography. Vol. 10. New York: Charles 
Scribner’s Sons. 

Mankovich, Eugene. 1940. “Annual Medical Report, St. George, Alaska (April 1).” 

Addressed to Commissioner of Fisheries, Washington, DC. Fur-Seal 
Archives. Library of NOAA National Marine Mammal Laboratory. 
Seattle, WA. 

Marine Mammal Resources Program. 1970. “Annual Report of Sealing Operation 
1970, Pribilof Islands, Alaska.” Fur-Seal Archives. Library of NOAA 
National Marine Mammal Laboratory. Seattle, WA. 

Marquis. 1968. Who Was Who In America. Vol. 1, 1897-1942. Chicago, IL: Marquis. 

Marshall, Edison. 1927. The Far Call. New York: Cosmopolitan Book. Second ed. pub¬ 
lished 1928 (New York: J. J. Little and Ives). 

Marston, Nathan Washington. 1888. The Marston Genealogy. Lubec, ME. 

Martin, Fredericka. 1946. The Hunting of the Silver Fleece. New York: Greenberg. 

-. 1960. Sea Bears: The Story of the Fur Seal. Philadelphia: Chilton. 

-. Papers Collection. Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, Univ. of Alaska, Fairbanks. 

Maryland Historical Society. 1976. The Hillandaler. Baltimore: Maryland Historical 
Society. 

Mason, Ronald J. 2000. “Archaeology and Native North American Oral Traditions.” 
American Antiquity 65 (2): 239-66. 


658 






Selected Bibliography 


Mattison, David. 1985. Camera Workers: The British Columbia, Alaska & Yukon 

Photographic Directory, 1858-1950. Victoria, BC: Camera Workers Press. 

Maynard, Richard. Notebooks and Letters, July 1-August 23, 1892. British Columbia 
Archives Index Guide Room, Victoria, BC. 

Maynard, Washburn. 1874. a The Fur-Seal Fisheries. In Seal and Salmon Fisheries 

and General Resources of Alaska, vol. 3. [See U.S. Congress. House. 44th 
Cong., 1st sess. H. Ex. Doc. 43. Washington, DC: GPO, 1876.] 

McCullough, J. G., ed. 1901. Orations and Essays of Edward John Phelps, Diplomat and 
Statesman. New York: Harper and Bros. 

McGeown, Mary G. ca. 1980. “John Macoun: Botanist and Explorer from Maralin.’ 
Review, Journal of the Craigavon Historical Society 4 (2): 7-11. 

Mclntire, Robert Harry. 1949. The MacINTRYE, McINTYRE andMclNTIRE Clan of 
Scotland, Ireland, Canada and New England. Norfolk, VA: self published. 

McInty re, Emma Jane. “Life in the Pribilof Islands. Letter to her mother Julia A. Baker. 

Original at Bancroft Library, Univ. of California, Berkeley. Copy of origi¬ 
nal in manuscript file MS26, .Alaska State Library Archives, Juneau. 

McInty re, H. H. 1870. “Letter. In U.S. Congress, House, Seal Fisheries in Alaska. [See 
44th Cong., 1st sess., H. Ex. Doc. 83, 25.] 

McIntyre, William J. “Letter to Dr. \\. H. Dali, Coast Survey.” Box 13, folder 37, corre¬ 
sponding letter. SIA, Washington, DC. 

-. 18"5. “Letter by William J. McIntyre." In U.S. Department of the Treasury. 

Special Agents Division. Seal and Salmon Fisheries and General 
Resources of Alaska. Vol. 1, 76-7. 

McMillin, L. C. 1936. “Agent's Annual Report, St. George Island, Alaska, March 
31.” Fur-Seal Archives. Library of NOAA National Marine Mammal 
Laboratory, Seattle, WA. 

Mendenhall, Thomas A. 1912. History, Correspondence and Pedigrees of the 

Mendenhalls of England, The United States and Africa, Relative to Their 
Common Origin and Ancestry. Greenville, OH: Chas. R. Kemble. 

Mendenhall, T. C., and C. H. Merriam. 1892. “Report of the U.S. Bering Sea 

Commissioners, June 30, 1892.” In U.S. Congress, Senate, Fur-Seal 
Arbitration, Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration, Convened at Paris 
under the Treaty between the United States of America and Great Britain, 
concluded at Washington February 29, 1892, for the Determination of 
Questions Between the Two Governments Concerning the Jurisdictional 
Rights of the United States in the Waters of Bering Sea, Vol. 2, 311-96. 

[See 53rd Cong., 2nd sess., Ex. Doc. 1~7.] 

Merriam, C. Hart. 1927. “Wm. Healey Dali.” Science, April 8. 


659 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


Merriam, C. Hart, and J. N. Rose. 1892. “Plants of the Pribilof Islands, Bering Sea.” 
Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 7: 133-50. 

Merrill, Marlene Deahl. 2005. Seeing Yellowstone in 1871: Earliest Descriptions and 
Images from the Field. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press. 

Miller, David Hunter. 1981. The Alaska Treaty. Kingston, ON: Limestone Press. 

Miller, Robert C. 1962. G Dallas Hanna. Proceedings of the California Academy of 
Sciences 32 (1): 1-40. 

Moore, John Trotwood. 1923. Tennessee: The Volunteer State, 1769-1923. Vol. 2. 
Chicago: S. J. Clarke. 

Morgan, Murray. 1947. Bridge to Russia: Those Amazing Aleutians. New York: E. P. 
Dutton. 

Morris, Lisa Marie. 2001. “Keeper of the Seal: The Art of Henry Wood Elliott and the 
Salvation of the Alaska Fur Seals.” PhD diss., Univ. of Alaska, Fairbanks. 

Morris, William Gouverneur. 1878. “Report on the Customs District, Public Service, 
and Resources of Alaska (November 25).” U.S. Congress, Senate, 45th 
Cong., 1st sess. S. Doc. 59. In U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents 
Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries and General Resources of Alaska, pt. 4. 

Munroe, Eugene. 1950. “The Occurrence of a Butterfly in the Pribilof Islands.” The 
Lepidopterists’News 4 (4-5): 44. 

Munroe, Kirk. 1894. The Fur-Seal’s Tooth. New York: Harper and Bros. 

Murphy, John Francis. 1968. “Cutter Captain: The Life and Times of John C. Cantwell.” 
PhD diss., Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs. 

Murray, Marti. 1997. Memory Eternal I: A Baseline Inventory of the Burials 

Surrounding the Holy Ascension Cathedral at Unalaska, Alaska. 
Anchorage, AK: Aleutian Pribilof Islands Restitution Trust. 

Murray, Peter. 1988. The Vagabond Fleet. Victoria, BC: Sono Nis. 

Naske, Claus M. 1979. Edward Lewis ‘Bob” Bartlett of Alaska: A Life in Politics. 
Fairbanks: Univ. of Alaska Press. 

The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. 1947. Vol. 33. New York: James T. 
White. 

Nelson, Henry Loomis. 1896. “The Passing of the Fur-Seal.” Harpers New Monthly 
Magazine 92, no. 549 (February): 463. 

Netsvetov, Iakov. 1980. The Journals of Iakov Netsvetov: The Atkha Years, 1828-1844. 

Translated with an introduction and supplementary material by Fydia T. 
Black. Materials for the Study of Alaska History, no. 16. Kingston, ON: 
Fimestone Press. 


660 



Selected Bibliography 


Nichols, Jeannette Paddock. 1924. Alaska: a History of Its Administration, 

Exploitation, and Industrial Development During Its First Half Century 
Under the Rule of the United States. Cleveland, Ohio: Arthur H. Clark. 

Nickerson and Cox. 1895. The Illustrated Historical Souvenir of Randolph, Vermont. 
Randolph, VT: Nickerson and Cox. 

Niebaum, Gustave. Sealing in Alaska. Original handwritten notes of 1883-5 about his 
Alaska experiences. Manuscript collection, PI<32, PI<38. Bancroft Library, 
Univ. of California, Berkeley. 

Noble, Denis L. 1991. Alaska and Hawaii: A Brief History ofU.S. Coast Guard 
Operations. Washington, DC: GPO. 

Northrop, N. B. 1861. Pioneer History of Medina County. Medina, OH: Geo. Redway. 

O’Hara, Doug. 2005. A Puzzle in the Pribilofs. Smithsonian, March. 

Okun, S. B. 1951. The Russian-American Company. Translated by Carl Ginsburg. 
Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press. 

Oleksa, Michael J. 1990. “The Creoles and Their Contributions to the Development 
of Alaska.” In Smith and Barnett, eds., Russian America: The Forgotten 
Frontier, 185-95. Tacoma: Washington State Historical Society 

-. 1992. Orthodox Alaska: A Theology of Mission. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s 

Seminary Press. 

Olin, K-G. 1998. “The Cabin Boy who became a Multimillionaire.” 2 pts. The Swedish 
Finn Historical Society Quarterly 7(1): 12-5 and 7 (2): 44-6. 

Orbach, Michael K., and Beverly Holmes. 1982. “The Pribilof Island Aleuts: Tentative 
Players in a Hybrid Economy.” Center for Coastal Marine Studies, Univ. 
of California, Santa Cruz. [Located in the reprint files of the Library of 
NOAA National Marine Mammal Laboratory, Seattle.] 

Orth, Donald J. 1967. Dictionary of Alaska Place Names. Geological Survey Paper 567. 
Washington, DC: GPO. 

Osborn, Sannie Kenton. 1997. “Death in the Daily Life of the Ross Colony: Mortuary 
Behavior in Frontier Russian America.” PhD diss., Univ. of Milwaukee. 

Osgood, Wilfred H. 1941. “New Habitat Group Shows Seals at Uncle Sam’s Fur Farm 
in Alaska.” Field Museum News 12 (1): 1-2. 

Osgood, Wilfred H., Edward A. Preble, and George H. Parker. 1914. “The fur seals 
and other life of the Pribilof Islands, Alaska, in 1914.” Bulletin of the U.S. 
Bureau of Fisheries 34. Washington, DC: GPO. [Also in U.S. Congress, 
Senate, 1915. 63rd Cong., 3rd sess. S. Docs. 820 and 980.] 

Palmer, General Friend. 1906. Early Days in Detroit. Detroit, MI: Hunt & June. 

Palmer, T. S. 1951. “In Memoriam: Theodore Nicholas Gill.” The Auk: A Quarterly 
Journal of Ornithology 32, no. 4 (Oct. 1915). 


661 





Pribilof Islands: The People 


Parker, George Howard. 1946. The World Expands. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. 
Press. 

Parkhurst, Richard. 1941. Boston Looks Seaward: The Story of the Port, 1630-1940. 
Boston: B. Humphries. 

Pendleton, Catherine L. 2008. “Changes in Aleut House Construction in the Russian 
Period: Evidence from the Zapadni Site, St. Paul Island, Alaska.” MA 
thesis, Univ. of Alaska, Anchorage. 

Perrault, Robert B. 1976. “One Piece in the Great American Mosaic: The Franco- 
Americans of New England.” Le Canado-Americain 2 (2). 

Peterson, H. A. 1928. “Agent’s Annual Report.” Submitted to the Commissioner of 

Fisheries, April 10. Fur-Seal Archives. Library of NOAA National Marine 
Mammal Laboratory. Seattle, WA. 

Petroff, Ivan. 1884. “Report on the population, industries, and resources of Alaska.” 

U.S. Bureau of the Census. Washington, DC: GPO. In Report of the 10th 
Census, vol. 8. [Also issued as U.S. Congress, House, 47th Cong., 2nd 
sess., Misc. Doc. 42, pt. 8, cf. Orth, Dictionary of Alaska Place Names, 
1079; and as Senate, 45th Cong., 1st sess., S. Doc. 59, as included in U.S. 
Dept, of the Treasury, Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries 
and General Resources of Alaska, pt. 4, 165-450. According to Orth, 
Dictionary of Alaska Place Names, 26, a preliminary version of the 1880 
census was published in 1881, but the final document was not published 
until 1884.] 

Phelps, Edward John. 1901. Orations and Essays of Edward John Phelps, Diplomat and 
Statesman. New York: Harper and Brothers. 

Pierce, Richard A., trans. 1984. The Russian-American Company: Correspondence 
of the Governors Communications Sent in 1818. Kingston, ON, and 
Fairbanks, AI<: Limestone Press. 

-. 1990. Russian America: A Biographical Dictionary. Kingston, ON: Limestone 

Press. 

Poland, Henry. 1892. Fur Bearing Animals in Nature and Commerce. London, UI<: 
Gurney and Jackson. 

Powell, William Henry. 1893. Officers of the Army and Navy (Volunteer) Who Served 
in the Civil War. Philadelphia: L. R. Hamersly. 

Preble, Edward A., and W. L. McAtee. 1923. North American Fauna, No. 46. A 

Biological Survey of the Pribilof Islands, Alaska. 1. Birds and Mammals. 11. 
Insects, Arachnids and Chilopods. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of 
Agriculture, Bureau of Biological Survey. 

Pribilof Islands Collection. Elmer E. Rasmuson Library. Univ. of Alaska Archives, 
Fairbanks. 


662 





Selected Bibliography 


Prowse, D. W. 1895. History of Newfoundland From the English, Colonial, and Foreign 
Records. London: Macmillan. 

Putnam, G. R. 1903. “Geographic Names in Alaska: Native Names for Localities on 
St. George Island, Bering Sea.” Coast and Geodetic Survey ReportXJ.S. 
Congress, Senate. 5th Cong., 2nd sess., S. Doc. 200, 23: 1011-16. 

Raines, Rebecca Robbins. 1996. Getting the Message Through: A Branch History of the 
U.S. Army Signal Corps. Center of Military History, U.S. Army Historical 
Series. Washington, DC: GPO. 

Ramsdell, George A. 1901. The History of Milford. Concord, NH: Rumford. 

Ransom, M. A. 1964. Sea of the Bear: Journal of a Voyage to Alaska and the Arctic, 
1921. Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute. 

Ray, Clayton Edward. 1971. “Polar Bear and Mammoth on the Pribilof Islands.” Arctic 
24, no. 1 (March): 9-18. 

Renner, H. M., and R. J. Howard. 2003. Population Trends of Ledge-Nesting Seabirds 
in the Pribilof Islands, Alaska, 1976-2002. Homer, AK: U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service, Alaska Maritime National Refuge. 

Roosevelt, Theodore. 1907. “The Fur-Seal Fisheries.” Metropolitan Magazine, March, 
687-98. 

Sanborn, Colin Campbell. 1948. “Wilfred Hudson Osgood: 1875-1947.” Journal of 
Mammalogy 29 (2): 95-112. 

Sauer, Martin. 1802. An Account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition to the 
Northern Parts of Russia: For Ascertaining the Degrees of Latitude and 
Longitude of the Mouth of The River Kovima, of the Whole Coast of the 
Tshutski, to East Cape, and of the Islands in the Eastern Ocean, Stretching 
to the American Coast, Performed... by Commodore Joseph Billings, In 
the Years 1785, & c. to 1794. London: T. Cadell. 

Scammon, Charles M. 1968. The Marine Mammals of the Northwestern Coast of North 
America. New York: Dover. 

Scharf, J. Thomas. 1882. History of Western Maryland. 1st ed., vol. 1. Louis H. Everts: 
Philadelphia. 

Scheffer, Victor B. 1940. “Pribilof Report.” Victor Scheffer at the Pribilof Islands 
Research 1940, 3.A. Fur-Seal Archives. Library of NOAA National 
Marine Mammal Laboratory. Seattle, WA. 

-. 1951. “The Rise and Fall of a Reindeer Herd.” Scientific Monthly, December. 

-. 1952. “A Mammoth Tooth from Alaska.” Nature Magazine 45 (1): 6. 

-. 1969. The Year of the Whale. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 

-. 1970. The Little Calf. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 

-. 1970. The Year of the Seal. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 


663 









Pribilof Islands: The People 


-. 1971. The Seeing Eye. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 

-. 1974. A Voice for Wildlife. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 

-. 1976. A Natural History of Marine Mammals. New York: Charles Scribner’s 

Sons. 

-. 1977. “They Stopped the Press on His Book.” Pacific Discovery 30 (1): 27-30. 

-. 2002. “Dr. Victor B. Scheffer.” Oral history interview. Super 16-mm film. May 

16. Pribilof Project Office, NOAA/NOS/ORR. Archived at NARA, 

College Park, MD. 

Scheffer, Victor B., Clifford H. Fiscus, and Ethel I. Todd. 1984. History of Scientific 
Study and Management of the Alaskan Fur Seal, Callorhinus ursinus, 
1786-1964. U.S. Dept. Commerce, NOAA Technical Rep. NMFS SSRF- 
780. 

Schlung, Tyler M., and the Students of Nikolski School, Unmak Island, Alaska. 

2002. Umnak: The People Remember—An Aleutian history. Walnut 
Creek, CA: Hardscratch Press. 

Schmidt, Karl Patterson. 1950. “Wilfred Hudson Osgood.” The Auk 67, no. 2 (April): 
183-9. 

Schutz, John A. 1997. Legislators of the Massachusetts General Court, 1691-1780: A 
Biographical Dictionary. Boston: Northeastern Univ. Press. 

Scott, Teresa L., Kymberly M. Yano, Jason Baker, Marcha H. Rickey, Michelle 
Eaames, and Charles W. Fowler. 2006. The Northern Fur Seal 
(Callorhinus ursinus): A Bibliography. AFSC Processed Report 2006-05. 
Seattle, WA: NOAA National Marine Mammal Laboratory. 

Scribner, Benjamin Franklin. Papers, 1846-1900. Manuscript and Visual Collections 
Dept. coll. SC1322. William Henry Smith Memorial Library. Indiana 
Historical Society, Indianapolis. 

-. 1847. Camp Life of a Volunteer: A Campaign in Mexico, or a Glimpse at Life in 

Camp. Evansville, IN: J. R. Nunemacher. 

Scribner, Theo. T. 1866. Indiana’s Roll of Honor. Vol. 2. Indianapolis, IN: A.D. Streight. 

Seal Hunting Industry 1897. Images. Museum of Natural History, Univ. of Iowa. 

Selby, Paul, ed. 1909. Illinois Historical Crawford County Biographical. Chicago: 
Munsell. 

Shalkop, Robert L. 1982. Henry Wood Elliott 1846-1930: A Retrospective Exhibition. 
Anchorage, AI<: Anchorage Historical and Fine Arts Museum. 

Shelikhov, Gregorii. 1789. “Letter to Delarov, from Okhotsk, August 30, 1789.” In 

Tikhmenev, A History of the Russian American Company, vol. 2, 19-20. 

Shepard, Isabel. 1889. The Cruise of the U.S. Steamer Rush in Behring Sea — Summer of 
1889. San Francisco: Bancroft. 


664 










Selected Bibliography 


Sherwood, Morgan B. 1965. Exploration of Alaska 1865-1900. New Haven, CT: Yale 
Univ. Press. 

-. 1967. Alaska and Its History. Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press. 

Shiels, Archie W. 1967. The Purchase of Alaska. College, AI<: Univ. of Alaska Press. 

Short, Lisa Marie. 1995. “Fredericka I. Martin.” MA thesis, Alaska Pacific Univ., 
Anchorage. 

Sims, Edwin W. 1906. Report on the Alaskan Fur-Seal Fisheries. U.S. Congress. House. 
59th Cong., 2nd sess. H. Doc. 251. Washington, DC: GPO. 

Slaymaker, Henry Cochran. 1909. History of the Descendants of Mathias Slaymaker. 
Lancaster, PA: Slaymaker. 

Sloss, Frank H., and Richard Pierce. 1971. “The Hutchinson, Kohl Story: A Fresh 
Look.” Pacific Northwest Quarterly 62 (1): 1-6. 

Sloss, Louis. 1887. Reply of the Alaska Commercial Company to the Charges of 
Governor Alfred P. Swineford of Alaska Against the Company in His 
Annual Report for the Year 1887. San Francisco: S. W. Raveley. 

Smith, Barbara Sweetland. 2007. The Church of the Holy Apostles Saints Peter 

and Paul on Saint Paul Island, Pribilof Islands: A History 1821-2001. 
Aleutian/Pribilof Islands Restitution Trust. 

-. 2007. The Church of the Holy Great Martyr Saint George The Victorious on St. 

George Island, Pribilof Islands: A History 1833-1998. Aleutian/Pribilof 
Islands Restitution Trust. 

Smith, Barbara Sweetland, and Redmond J. Barnett, eds. 1990. Russian America: 

The Forgotten Frontier. Tacoma: Washington State Historical Society. 

Smith, Barbara Sweetland, and Patricia J. Petrivelli. 1994. A Sure Foundation: Aleut 
Churches in World War II. Anchorage, AI<: Aleutian/Pribilof Islands 
Association. 

Smith, G. Wayne. 1959. Nathan Goff Jr.: A Biography. Charleston, WV: Education 
Foundation. 

Smith, Harlan 1. 1920. “James M. Macoun.” Science, new series, 51 (1324): 478-80. 

Smith, Hugh M. 1911. “Making the Fur Seal Abundant.” National Geographic 
Magazine, December, 1139-65. 

Smith, Joseph P., ed. 1898. History of the Republican Party in Ohio. Vol. 1. Chicago: 
Lewis. 

Snow, H. J. 1910. In Forbidden Seas: Recollections of Sea-Otter Hunting in the Kurils. 
London: Edward Arnold. 

Solovjova, Katerina G., and Aleksandra A. Vovnyanko. 2002. The Fur Rush. 
Anchorage, AI<: Phenix. 

Stafford, Morgan Hewitt. 1941. A Genealogy of the Kidder Family. Rutland, VT: Tuttle. 





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Stanley-Brown, Joseph. 1971. My Friend Garfield. American Heritage Magazine 50 
(August). 

Strobridge, Truman R., and Dennis L. Noble. 1999. Alaska and the U.S. Revenue 
Cutter Service, 1867-1915. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. 

Sillman, Eugene Lee. 2002. “Yellowstone Lake as Seen by Artists.” In Yellowstone Lake, 
Hotbed of Chaos or Reservoir of Resilience, edited by Roger J. Anderson 
and Roger Harmon, 242-55. Proceedings of 6th Biennial Scientific 
Conference on the Great Yellowstone Ecosystem. Mammoth, Yellowstone 
National Park, Yellowstone Center for Resources and the George Wright 
Society. 

Slaymaker, Henry Cochran. 1909. History of the Descendants of Mathias Slaymaker. 
Lancaster, PA: Slaymaker. 

Speer, Rollo Clayton. 1938. Genealogy of the Speers-Spears-Speer Family. Pocatello, ID: 
pub. unknown. 

Sumner, Charles. 1867. “Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts on the 
Cession of Russian America to the United States.” Washington, DC: 
Congressional Globe Office. 

Swineford, A. P. 1876. “History and Review of the Copper, Iron, Silver, Slate and other 
Material Interests of the South Shore of Lake Superior.” Mining Journal 
(Marquette, MI). 

-. 1887. Report of the Governor of Alaska. 

Sylvester, Nathaniel Bartlett. 1880. History of Rensselaer County New York. 
Philadelphia, PA: Everts & Peck. 

Taber Family Papers. Charles Bryant letter. MSS36, S-gl3, series A, S-51, folder 1. Old 
Dartmouth Historical Society Library. New Bedford, MA. 

Taggart, Harold F. 1954. “Journal of William H. Ennis. Member, Russian-American 
Telegraph Exploring Expedition.” Pts. 1 and 2. California Historical 
Society Quarterly 33 (1): 1-12 and 33 (2): 147-68. 

-. 1959. “Sealing on St. George Island, 1868.” The Pacific Historical Review 28 (4): 

353-60. 

Tanner, Z. L. 1897. “Deep-Sea Exploration: A General Description of the Steamer 
Albatross, Her Appliances and Methods.” Bulletin of the U.S. Fish 
Commission 16: 257-428. 

Tarasar, C. J., and John H. Erickson, eds. 1975. Orthodox America, 1794-1976: 

Development of the Orthodox Church in America. Syosett, New York: 
Orthodox Church in America. 

Tebenkov, M. D. 1852. Atlas sieu-zapadaykh beregov Ameriki [Atlas of the NW Shores 
of America from Bering Strait to Cape Corrientes and the Aleutian 
Islands]. St. Petersburg, Russia: pub. unknown. 


666 





Selected Bibliography 


Teichmann, Emil. 1963. A Journey to Alaska in the Year 1868: Being a Diary of the Late 
Emil Teichmann. New York: Argosy-Antiquarian. [Reprint in a limited 
edition of 750 copies from an original private publication of 100 copies in 
1925.] 

Thomas, George H. 1869. “Report of Major General George H. Thomas Relative to 
Seal Life, Natives, and Military Posts on the Islands of St. Paul and St. 
George.” In U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Alaskan Seal 
Fisheries: Compilation of Documents and Other Printed Matter Relating 
Thereto. Vol. 1. 

Thompson, D’Arcy Wentworth. 1897. Report by Professor DArcy Thompson on His 
Mission to the Behring Sea in 1896, Dated March 4, 1897. London: Her 
Majesty’s Stationary Office. Printed by Harrison and Sons. 

-. 1897. Despatch from Professor DArcy Thompson, Forwarding a Report on his 

Mission to Behring Sea in 1897. London, UK: Harrison and Sons. 

-. 1917. Cambridge: On Growth and Form. Cambridge Univ. Press. 

-. 1987. An Index to the Correspondence and Papers of Sir DArcy Wentworth 

Thompson. University Publications no. 64. St. Andrews, Scotland: St. 
Andrews Univ. Library. 

Thompson, G. 2005. Results of Seabird Monitoring at St. George Island, Alaska in 2005: 

Summary Appendices. Homer: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Alaska 
Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. 

Thompson, Seton H. 1950. “Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries: 1947.” Fish and 
Wildlife Service Bureau of Commercial Fisheries Statistical Digest 20. 

-. 1953. “Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries: 1950.” Fish and Wildlife Service 

Bureau of Commercial Fisheries Statistical Digest 29. 

-. 1954. “Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries: 1952.” Fish and Wildlife Service 

Bureau of Commercial Fisheries Statistical Digest 33. 

-. 1957. “Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries, 1955.” Fish and Wildlife Service 

Bureau of Commercial Fisheries Statistical Digest 40. 

-. 1960. “Alaska Fishery and Fur-Seal Industries, 1956.” Fish and Wildlife Service 

Bureau of Commercial Fisheries Statistical Digest 45. 

Tikhmenev, P. A. 1978. A History of The Russian American Company. Vol. 1. 

Translated and edited by Richard A. Pierce and Alton S. Donnelly. Seattle: 
Univ. of Washington Press. 

-. 1979. A History of the Russian American Company. Vol. 2. Edited by Richard 

A. Pierce and Alton S. Donnelly. Translated by Dmitri Krenov. Kingston, 
ON: Limestone Press. 

Torrey, Barbara Boyle. 1978. Slaves of the Harvest: The Story of the Pribilof Aleuts. St. 

Paul Island, AI<: Tanadgusix. [The original publication was spiral bound, 


667 












Pribilof Islands: The People 


whereas the more popular edition was later released in paperback. Page 
numbers differ between these two formats.] 

Townsend, Charles Haskins. 1927. “Old Times with the Birds: Autobiographical.” The 
Condor 29 (5): 224-34. 

True, Frederick William. Papers (notebooks and related materials concerning 1895 
trip to Pribilof Islands). RU 7181, box 2, series 5. SIA, Washington, DC. 

U.S. Army. 2003. Integrated Natural Resources Management Plan, Fort Richardson, 
Alaska. 

U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1880-1930. Microfilm records. NARA, Washington, DC. 

U.S. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. 1964. “Annual report of sealing opera¬ 
tions 1964, Pribilof Islands, Alaska.” [This document, labeled “For 
Administrative Use Only,” was found in the Library of NOAA National 
Marine Mammal Laboratory, Seattle, WA.] 

-. 1965. “Annual report of sealing operations 1965, Pribilof Islands, Alaska.” [This 

document, labeled “For Administrative Use Only,” was found in the 
Library of NOAA National Marine Mammal Laboratory, Seattle, WA.] 

-. 1966. “Annual report of sealing operations 1966, Pribilof Islands, Alaska.” [This 

document, labeled “For Administrative Use Only,” was found in the 
Library of NOAA National Marine Mammal Laboratory, Seattle, WA.] 

-. 1968. “Annual report of sealing operations 1968, Pribilof Islands, Alaska.” [This 

document, labeled “For Administrative Use Only,” was found in the 
Library of NOAA National Marine Mammal Laboratory, Seattle, WA.] 

U.S. Bureau of Fisheries. 1913. Alaska Seal Fisheries: Compilation of Documents and 
Other Printed Matter Relating Thereto. Vols. 11-16. Washington, DC: 
GPO. [This document is a compilation of documents with a table of 
contents. Pagination is sequential within a specific document but not be¬ 
tween successive documents. Volume 11, used for this work, has the date 
1913 crossed out and a date of 1929 inscribed.] 

U.S. Census Office. 1884. Tenth Census, 1880. Washington, DC: GPO. [Also see 
Petroff, 1884.] 

U.S. Congress. House. 1868. “Report of the Secretary of the Treasury by Hugh 

McCulloch.” 40th Cong., 3rd sess. Appendix to the Congressional Globe. 
Washington, DC. 

-. 1868. “Message from the President of the United States in Relation to the 

Transfer of Territory from Russia to the United States, January 28, 1868.” 
40th Cong., 2nd sess. H. Ex. Doc. 125. In U.S. Department of Commerce 
and Labor, Alaskan Seal Fisheries: Compilation of Documents and Other 
Printed Matter Relating Thereto. Vol. 1. 


668 









Selected Bibliography 


1869. “Letter from the Secretary of the Treasury in Answer to a Resolution 
of the House of December 5, Transmitting a Copy of the Report of the 
Late Special Agent of His Department for Alaska.” U.S. Congress. House. 
41st Cong., 2nd sess. H. Ex. Doc. 36. In U.S. Department of Commerce 
and Labor, Alaskan Seal Fisheries: Compilation of Documents and Other 
Printed Matter Relating Thereto. Vol. 1. 

1869. “Letter from Frank N. Wicker to Sec. George S. Boutwell, October 25.” 
41st Cong., 2nd sess. H. Ex. Doc. 136. Washington, DC: GPO. 

1870. “Letter from the Secretary of the Interior Concerning Fur-Seal Fisheries 
of Alaska.” U.S. Congress, House. 41st Cong., 2nd sess. H. Ex. Doc. 144. 

1876. “A History of the Wrongs of Alaska. An Appeal to the People and Press 
of America.” 44th Cong., 1st sess. H. Ex. Doc. 83 (Jan. 20), 152-71. 

In U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Alaskan Seal Fisheries: 
Compilation of Documents and Other Printed Matter Relating Thereto. 

1876. Seal Fisheries in Alaska. 44th Cong., 1st sess. H. Ex. Doc. 83. Washington, 
DC: GPO. 

1876. Committee on Ways and Means. Alaska Commercial Company. 44th 
Cong., 1st sess. H. Rep. 623. Washington, DC: GPO. 

1883. Compendium of the Tenth Census (June 1, 1880), Compiled Pursuant 
to an Act of Congress Approved August 7, 1882. 47th Cong., 1st sess. H. 
Misc. Doc. 64. U.S. Census Office. Washington, DC: GPO. 

1884. “The Alaska Commercial Company.” 48th Cong., 1st sess., H. Rep. 2027. 

In U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Alaskan Seal Fisheries: 
Compilation of Documents and Other Printed Matter Relating Thereto. 
Vol. 2. 

1884. “United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries, Report of the 

Commissioner for 1883.” In Index to the Miscellaneous Documents of 
the House of Representatives for the First Session of the Forty-Eighth 
Congress, 1883-84. 40 vols. 48th Cong., 1st sess. Misc. Doc. 67. Pt. 11. 
Washington, DC: GPO. 

1889. “Report of the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, House of 
Representatives” The Fur-Seal and Other Fisheries of Alaska: Investigation 
of the Fur-Seal and Other Fisheries of Alaska. 50th Cong., 2nd sess. 

H. Rep. 3883. Washington, DC: GPO. [Also in U.S. Department of 
Commerce and Labor, Alaskan Seal Fisheries: Compilation of Documents 
and Other Printed Matter Relating Thereto. Vol. 3.] 

1898. “Report on the Seal Islands of Alaska.” In U.S. Dept, of the Treasury, 

Special Agents Div., Seal and Salmon Fisheries and General Resources of 
Alaska. Vol. 2. [Also published as U.S. Congress. House. 55th Cong., 1st 
sess. H. Doc. 92, pts. 1-4.] 


669 















Pribilof Islands: The People 


-. 1904. Committee of Ways and Means. “Fur Seals of Alaska.” Hearing before 

the Committee of Ways and Means. 58th Cong., 2nd sess., Mar. 9. 
Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1906. “Letter from the Secretary of the Treasury, Transmitting a 

Communication from the Agent in Charge of the Seal Islands and the 
Late Agent so Said Islands, Calling Attention to the Necessity for an 
Appropriation for Certain Improvements.” 52nd Cong., 2nd sess. H. Ex. 
Doc. 207. In U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Alaskan Seal 
Fisheries: Compilation of Documents and Other Printed Matter Relating 
Thereto. Vol. 4. 

-. 1906. “Committee on Claims Recommend Payment of Dr. L.A. Noyes for 

Services Rendered in the Capacity of a Quasi-Treasury Agent on St. 
George Island During the Winter of 1886-87.” 57th Cong., 2nd sess. H. 
Rep. 3150, 2. In U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Alaskan Seal 
Fisheries: Compilation of Documents and Other Printed Matter Relating 
Thereto. Vol. 8. 

-. 1911. Hearings Before the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of 

Commerce and Labor on House Resolution 73 to Investigate the Fur- 
Seal Industry of Alaska. June 28 and July 6, 1911. 62nd Cong., 1st sess. 
Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1911. Appendix A to Hearings Before the Committee on Expenditures in the 

Department of Commerce and Labor on House Resolution no. 73 to 
Investigate The Fur-Seal Industry of Alaska. June 28 and July 6, 1911. 62nd 
Cong., 1st sess. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1911. Seal Islands of Alaska. 62nd Cong., 1st sess. H. Doc. 93. Washington, DC: 

GPO. 

-. 1914. Hearings before the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of 

Commerce : Investigation of the Fur-Seal Industry of Alaska. 63rd Cong., 
2nd sess., no. 1. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1997. Commerce Secretary’s Report to Congress on the Pribilof Islands as 

Required under Public Law 104-91. Federal Register 62, no. 72 (April 15): 
18,319. 

U.S. Congress. Senate. 1869. Letter of the Secretary of the Treasury Communications, 
Reports of Captain Charles Bryant. 41st Cong., 2nd sess. S. Ex. Doc. 32. 
Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1888. Alaska Seal and Fur Company. Letter from the Secretary of the Interior, 

Transmitting the Annual Report of the Governor of Alaska upon the 
Operations of the Alaska Seal and Fur Company. 50th Cong., 1st sess. S. 
Ex. Doc. 297. Washington, DC: GPO. 


670 












Selected Bibliography 


1889. “Letter from the Secretary of the Interior Transmitting from the 
Governor of Alaska a Report of the Alaska Seal and Fur Company” [Dec. 
10, 1888]. U.S. Congress. Senate. 50th Cong., 2nd sess. S. Ex. Doc. 74. 

In U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Alaskan Seal Fisheries: 
Compilation of Documents and Other Printed Matter Relating Thereto. 
Vol. 2. 

1890. Alaska Fur Seal Fisheries. 51st Cong., 2nd sess. S. Ex. Doc. 49. 
Washington, DC: GPO. 

1891. Letter from the Acting Secretary of the Treasury, Transmitting, in Response 
to a Resolution of the Senate, Reports Concerning the Condition of the Seal 
Islands of Alaska. 51st Cong., 2nd sess. S. Ex. Doc. 49. Washington, DC: 
GPO. 

1895. Fur-Seal Arbitration. Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration at Paris 
under the Treaty between the United States of America and Great Britain, 
concluded at Washington February 29, 1892, for the determination of 
questions between the two governments concerning the jurisdictional rights 
of the United States in the waters of Bering Sea. Pts. 1-16. Washington, 
DC: GPO. [These proceedings have been variously cited, e.g., “U.S. 
Behring Sea Tribunal of Arbitration,” “Paris, Bering Sea Tribunal of 
Arbitration,” “Fur Seal Arbitration,” and “Tribunal Of Arbitration, 
Convened at Paris.”] 

1896. Reports of Agents, Officers, and Persons Acting Under the Authority of the 
Secretary of the Treasury, in Relation to the Condition of Seal Life on the 
Rookeries of the Pribilof Islands, and to Pelagic Sealing in Bering Sea and 
the North Pacific Ocean in the Years 1893-5. 54th Cong., 1st sess. S. Doc. 
137, pts. 1-2. Washington, DC: GPO. 

1897. Revenue from Rental of the Seal Islands of Alaska. 54th Cong., 2nd sess. S. 
Doc. 81. Washington, DC: GPO. 

1905. Alaska Seal Fisheries. 59th Cong., 1st sess. S. Doc. 98, exhibit 17. 
Washington, DC: GPO. 

1908. “Letter from the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, Transmitting, 
Pursuant to Senate Resolution, of March 2, 1908, Certain Reports 
Relating to The Alaskan Seal Fisheries.” 60th Cong., 1st sess. S. Doc. 376, 
29. Washington, DC: GPO. [Also in U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, Alaskan 
Seal Fisheries: Compilation of Documents and Other Printed Matter 
Relating Thereto. Vol. 15, 12.] 

1910. An Act to protect the seal fisheries of Alaska and for other purposes. S. 
7242. S. Res. 90, 91, 92. 61st Cong., 2nd sess. Washington, DC: GPO. 

1910. Congressional Record. January 13, 1910, p. 579. Washington, DC: GPO. 


671 














Pribilof Islands: The People 


-. Committee on Commerce. 1926. Witness Henry W. Elliott, June 10. Hearing 

on Alaska Fur Seals, Bill no. 69S.3679. 69th Cong., 1st sess. Washington, 
DC: GPO. 

-. 1953. Executive Sessions of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on 

Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations. Vol. 4. 83rd 
Cong., 1st sess. Washington, DC: GPO. [This sealed document became 
available in 2003.] 

U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor. 1906. Alaskan Seal Fisheries: Compilation 
of Documents and Other Printed Matter Relating Thereto. Vols. 1-10. 
Washington, DC: GPO. 

U.S. Department of the Interior. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Bureau of Commercial 
Fisheries. Saint Paul Operations Office, St. Paul, AK. Subject and Decimal 
Correspondence of the Pribilof Islands Program, 1923-1969. RG 22, 
boxes 52-61. NARA, Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, Alaska. [See 
http://www.archives.gov/research/arc. ARC ID 2848763]. 

-. 1947. “Ward T. Bower Retires from Federal Service.” Department of the Interior 

Information Service. Washington, DC. April 3. [Located in reprint files 
at the Library of NOAA National Marine Mammal Laboratory, Seattle, 
WA.] 

-. 1951. Constitution and Bylaws of the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island, 

Alaska. Ratified June 12, 1950. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1951. Corporate Charter of the Aleut Community of St Paul Island, Alaska. 

Ratified June 12, 1950. Washington, DC: GPO. 

-. 1965. Plans for the Pribilof Islands. Washington, DC: Bureau of Commercial 

Fisheries. 

U.S. Department of the Treasury. Pribilof Islands Treasury Agent Log Books for 

St. Paul Island and St. George Island, 1870-1961. RG 22, U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service. NARA, Pacific Alaska Region. 

-. Alaska File of the Office of the Secretary of the Treasury 1868-1903. Microfilm 

publication M720, roll 25 miscellaneous records, 1868. RG 22, Fish and 
Wildlife Service. NARA, Pacific Northwest Region, Seattle, WA. 

-. Special Agents Division. 1898. Seal and Salmon Fisheries and General 

Resources of Alaska. 4 vols. illus., plates, maps, charts. U.S. Cong., House, 
55th Cong. 1st sess. H. Doc. 92. 4 pts. Washington, DC: GPO. [It is im¬ 
portant to note that this citation is one of many government publications 
with confounding citations. Scheffer et al., History of Scientific Study, 61, 
offered the following citation for this reference: “U.S. Congress. House. 
1898. Seal and Salmon Fisheries and General Resources of Alaska. 55th 
Cong., 1st. sess., Doc. 92, 4 pts.” This important work was authorized in 
March 1896, by the House, with the Senate concurring, to include “re- 


672 












Selected Bibliography 


ports, correspondence, charts, maps, and other documents, now on file 
in the Treasury Department, or other branches of the Government, relat¬ 
ing to the fur seal, salmon fisheries, and other matters pertaining to the 
Territory of Alaska” (pt. 1, p. ii). A full list of the contents will be found in 
James A. Wickersham’s 1927 A Bibliography of Alaskan Literature 1724- 
1924, entry 7655, p. 423. Fairbanks, AI<: Agricultural College and School 
of Miners.] 

-. 1899. Report of The Cruise of the U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear and the Overland 

Expedition for the Relief of the Whalers in the Arctic Ocean, from 
November 27, 1897 to September 13, 1898. Division of Cutter Service 
Doc. 2101. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Letter. Statistics of the Killing Grounds. RG 22, location 
20. NARA, Anchorage, AK. 

University of St. Andrews. 1987. An Index to the Correspondence and Papers of Sir 
DArcy Wentworth Thompson. St. Andrews Univ. Pub. 64. Fife, Scotland: 
St. Andrews Univ. 

Van Cleaf, Aaron R. 1906. History of Pickaway County, Ohio and Representative 
Citizens. Circleville, OH: Biographical Publishing. 

Vaughn, Thomas, and Bill Holm. 1990. Soft Gold. Portland: Oregon Historical Society. 

Veltre, Douglas W. 1990. “Perspectives on Aleut Culture Change during the Russian 
Period.” In Smith and Barnett, eds., Russian America: The Forgotten 
Frontier, 175-183. 

-, and Allen P. McCartney. 2002. “Russian exploitation of Aleuts and fur seals: 

The archaeology of eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century settlements 
in the Pribilof Islands, Alaska.” Historical Archaeology 36 (3): 8-17. 

-, and Mary J. Veltre. 1987. “The Northern Fur Seal: A Subsistence and 

Commercial Resource for Aleuts of the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands, 
Alaska.” Etudes/Inuit/Studies 11 (2): 51-72. 

Veniaminov, Ivan. 1834. Opyt Grammatiki Aleutsko-Lisjevskago Jazyka [Essay Toward 
a Grammar of the Fox Island Aleutian Language ]. St. Petersburg: 
Publisher unknown. 

-. 1944. The Aleut Language. Edited by Fredericka I. Martin. Translated by 

Richard H. Geoghegan. Washington, DC: GPO. Originally published as 
Opyt grammatiki aleutsko-lis’evskago yazyka. St. Petersburg, 1846. 

-. 1984. Notes on the Islands of the Unalashka District [Zapiski ob ostrovakh 

Unalashkinskago otdeyla ]. Edited by Richard A. Pierce. Translated 
by Lydia T. Black and R. H. Geoghegan. Elmer E. Rasmuson Library 
Translation Program, Univ. of Alaska Fairbanks. Kingston, ON: 

Limestone Press. 


673 









Pribilof Islands: The People 


-. n.d. “Early History of the Pribylov Islands” [ Zapiski ob ostrovah Unalaskinskago 

otdeyla ]. Translated by R. H. Geoghegan. [Unpublished manuscript lo¬ 
cated in reprint file of the Library of NOAA National Marine Mammal 
Laboratory, Seattle, WA.] 

Ward, Frederick M. 1923. Andrew Warde and His Descendants 1597-1910. New York: 
A. T. De La Mare. 

Wardman, George. 1883. “The Seal Islands of Alaska.” The Overland Monthly 2 (7): 
28-32. 

-. 1884. A Trip to Alaska: A Narrative. San Francisco: Samuel Carson. 

-. 1885. “The Fuel of the Future,” Scientific American Supplement 497 (July 11). 

-. 1890. “Folk-Lore Scrap-Book.” Journal of American Folklore 3 (8). 

Warner, Donald P. 1951. “Prelude to Populism.” Minnesota Historical Society Journal, 
Sept. 1951. 

Webster’s Biographical Dictionary: A Dictionary of Names of Noteworthy Persons 
with Pronunciations and Concise Biographies. 1943. 1st ed. Springfield, MA: 

G. and C. Merriam. 

Weglein, Jessica. Guide to the Fredericka Martin Papers, 1926-84. Tamiment Library 
and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. New York University, NY. 

Weis, Norman D. 1988. Ghost Towns of the Northwest. Caldwell, ID: Caston. 

Western Biographical Publishing Co. 1883. The Biographical Cyclopcedia and 
Portrait Gallery With An Historical Sketch of the State of Ohio. 

Cincinnati: Western Biographical. 

Williams, Gerald O. 1984. The Bering Sea Fur Seal Dispute. Juneau: Alaska Maritime. 

-. 1987. “Michael J. Healy and the Alaska Maritime Frontier, 1880-1902.” MA 

thesis, Univ. of Oregon. [Note: the author incorrectly identifies Healy as 
Michael James Healy rather than Michael Augustine Healy. Inexplicably, 
the thesis misinterprets several references to Michael A. Healy.] 

Williams, Mary Ann Barnes. 1936. Pioneer Days of Washburn, North Dakota. 
Washburn, ND: Mary Ann Barnes Williams. 

Willoughby, Barrett. 1940. Alaska Holiday. Boston: Little, Brown. 

Willoughby, Malcolm F. 1957. The U.S. Coast Guard in World War II. Annapolis, MD: 
U.S. Naval Institute. 

Winer, G. S. 2001. “St. Paul Island, Pribilof Islands, Alaska: Geology, Volcanic 

Evolution, and Volcanic Hazards.” Master’s thesis, Montana State Univ., 
Bozeman. 

Winer, G. S., T. C. Feeley, and M. A. Cosca. 2004. “Basaltic Volcanism in the Bering 
Sea: Geochronology and Volcanic Evolution of St. Paul Island, Pribilof 


674 









Selected Bibliography 


Islands, Alaska.” Journal of Vulcanology and Geothermal Research 134: 
277-301. 

Wolfe, Robert J. 1982. “Alaska’s Great Sickness, 1900: An Epidemic of Measles and 
Influenza in a Virgin Soil Population.” Proceedings of the American 
Philosophical Society 126 (2): 91-121. 

Woodward, Frank Ernest. 1920. “The Erskine Family of Bristol, Maine, 1847-1924.” 
New England Historical and Genealogical Register 74: 91. 

York, Ann. 1985. “Memories—Mark C. Keyes, 1928-1984.” Marine Mammal Science 1 
(2): 186. 

Young, Andrew W. 1869. History of the Town of Warsaw, New York, from its First 
Settlement to the Present Time: With Numerous Family Sketches and 
Biographical Notes. Buffalo, NY: Sage, Sons. 


675 



THIS CURIOUS WORLD 

BY WILLIAM FER0D80N 



SEALSKIN COATS 

WORN BY THE WOMEN 
OF TODAY ARE FURNISHED 
BV " BACHELORS 
SEALING RESTR/CnONS LIMIT 
THE ANNUAL SLAUGHTER 
TO BE MADE ONLY AMONG 
THE IMMATURE MALES, 
KNOWN AS‘BACHELORS ' 


© 1937IYHE1SHVICE. INC. 




I This Cu rious World F*rju»on | 


(SJ_ArMDS, PROPEKi'V 
STATES /AINlO home 
1NE2^ OF MOO F OfF ' M ^ WQKLD5 
£T(_//Si were: ODNSIDFC£D 

SO UNIMPORTANT TO 

-p-l/iCT-THEY WERE 

DlSOTVEPiED AND 
RDROOTTEM 
■ 7 -W/RLE^r 

EJEFORe THEY WERE 
O/VEN A 

fNJAAjVT 


EMUOFS - 

v-^vlc r-jTPAID THE 
puiRCWAse p«>oe; os 
ALASKA 
-SSOXET/V 7 /ATES. 


Mpa Tim AY Hr4 irnuirr tat 


THE Pribilof Islands hove been one ol Uncle Sam’s most proftl- 
' nble investments, due lo the fact that they are the breeding grounds 
Of the fur seat. And he intends lo. keep the Investment safe. Strict 
regulations are in force in the scaling industry, and even tourists 
are forbidden from visiting the islands. 


Left: “This Curious World’’ by William Ferguson, Ironwood Dailey Globe, Ironwood, MI, Mar. 23, 1937 
(p4). 


Right: “This Curious World” by William Ferguson, an Editorial cartoon which appeared as a 
Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) item on Feb. 18-19, 1938, in: Ironwood Daily Globe, 
Ironwood, MI (p. 4); Clearfield Progress, Clearfield, PA (p. 3); Modesto Bee Herald News, Modesto, CA 
(p. 8); Yuma Daily Sun, Yuma, AZ (p. 6). 


William Ferguson (1900-1986) was a farm boy from McPherson, Kansas who used humor and wit as 
a cartoonist to depict the problems facing Midwest farmers and nature within the United States. At age 
18 he began art instruction under editorial cartoonist Carey Orr and Carl Ed at the Chicago Academy 
of Fine Arts. Ferguson started with the art staff at the Chicago Tribune in 1920, but a decade later, 
while he was with the NEA Service, his own comic strips appeared in mid-west farm dailies; he lived in 
Omaha, Nebraska with his wife Mildred Evans Roberts, also from McPherson, Kansas. Ferguson was 
the creator o/Glen Forrest (nature series taken from his life near Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National 
Park); Catesby (gag strip with a nature angle); This Curious World (strange nature-facts feature); The 
Beekisns (about a farm family, it ran 50 years in farming publication Drover’s Journal,). “Ferguson was 
a naturalist and international lecturer for the National Audubon Society ... He owned some farmland 
in western Kansas. That kept him in touch with what was important to farmers,” said his nephew, re¬ 
tired attorney Ward Ferguson of McPherson, to Lauretta McMillen in 1986. [McMillen, Lauretta, staff 
writer “Obituaries!’ Witchita Eagle, Witchita, KS, June 26, 1986, p. 2] Other sources for this Ferguson 
note: genealogy information from Ward P. Ferguson at http://www.familysearch.com; Knoll, Erwin, 
“New Sunday Page Has Love, Adventure, Nature!’ Editor & Publisher, Aug. 23, 1952, 44. 


676 





































Appendix 


5 



pUKANNON |3 EACH. 

Sand-dume Thuls, east shore of St. Piiul's Island—Fur Seals flaying in Hie surf—June 25, 1872 


Lukannon Beach. Sand-dune Tracts, East Shore of St. Paul’s Island—Fur Seals Playing in the Surf—June 
25, 1872. (Elliott’s depiction of fur seals on Lukanin Beach shows thousands of seals which have not 
been observed so abundantly in many years.) Henry Wood Elliott. 1873. Report on the Prybilov Group, 
or Seal Islands of Alaska. Washington, DC: GPO. 


677 




Lukannon 

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All rights reserved 


Permission granted by Barry Peter Ould, Bardic Edition/The Percy Grainger Society/Estate Aylesbury, 
Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom 


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2 



cho - rus 
off - - ing 

Salt House 



that 

drowned 

the brea 

as 

far 

as voice 

like 

sil - - ly 

sheep 


i- 3 - 

i 


kers’ 

song. 

The 

could 

reach, 

We 

and 

tame, 

And 




3 





p 

rs 


pp Slower, J = 50 




- 


• A 12 


£ 


9—r 








z= 


strong!. 

beach_ 

came_ 


The 

song 

of 

plea 

- sant 

stat - 

- ions 

be - 

The 

Beach 

- es 

of 

Lu - 

kan - 

- non 

the 

Wheel 

down. 

wheel 

down 

to 

south 

- ward! 

Oh, 



679 























































































































































































3 


P 



side 

the 

salt 

la - 

goons. 

The 

song 

of 

blow 

- ing 

squad - 

rons 

that 

win 

- ter 

wheat 

so 

tall 

The 

drip - 

ping, crin 

- kled 

lich 

ens. 

the 

Goo 

- ver 

- oo - 

ska. 

go! 

And 

tell 

the 

Deep 

- Sea 

Vice - 

roys 

the 




shuf - fled down the dunes. 


sea - fog drench - ing all! 

sto - ry of our woe! 



m 


The song of 
The plat - forms 
Ere, emp - ty 


mid - night 
of our 

as the 




danc 

- es 

that 

churned 

the 

sea 

to 

flame 

The 

play 

shark’s 

-ground, 

egg 

all 

shi 

ning 

pest 

smooth 

and 

worn' 

The 

the 

tern 

flings 

a - 

shore, 

The 



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2USGS 

science for a changing world 


U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 
U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 


U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 
NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION 
OFFICE OF RESPONSE AND RESTORATION 
PRIBILOF ISLANDS ENVIRONMENTAL RESTORATION PROJECT 


SAINT GEORGE ISLAND WEST QUADRANGLE 


ALASKA - PRIBILOF ISLANDS 
1:25 000-SCALE SERIES (TOPOGRAPHIC) 



520 000 METERS 


532 500 METERS 


Suskaralogh Point 
fSasxagiilux Kadaa) 


Da/ngi Point 


/Akaan-angti 


Rocks 


Rocks 


tngirh Nugangjn) 


290 000 
METERS 


ANortheast 1897 
X3B 


Shoal 


Landing 


Rocks 


isoaginarr 


(Kagalam Ki 


AtkaLoke\ 
iNiigum Anii 


Rush Point 
(Uiaadam Kadaa) 


Goti&r-JSjrt 

(Qogagom 


i sex 


I BIX 


Sea Lion Point 
(Qawam Tana Kadaa) 


Helipad; 


XU3 


X137 


XI09 


AND WILDLIFE 
SERVICE 


JJrhc nangula Lake -c 
MJm iO nagalan Uluung 
Anii dan) 


Angola 


WILDLIFE SERVI, 


Cascade Point 
(igadgutum Kadaa) 


280 000 
METERS 


n 63°"-N 


525 000 METERS 


515 000 METERS 


INTERIOR GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. HESTON. VIRGINIA 2002 


Produced by the United States Geological Survey 
in cooperation with U. S. Department of Commerce, 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

Topography derived from Imagery taken 1993. Planimetry derived 
from Imagery taken 2001 and other sources. Survey control 
current as of 2000. This map has not been field checked 
Boundaries current as of 2001 

North American Datum of 1983 (NAD 83). Projection and 

1 000-meter grid: Universal Transverse Mercator, zone 2 

2 500-meter ticks: Alaska Coordinate System of 1983 (zone 9) 

North American Datum of 1927 (NAD 27) is shown by dashed 
comer ticks. The values of the shift between NAD 83 and NAD 27 
are obtainable from National Geodetic Survey NADCON software 

There may be private inholdings within the boundaries of the 

National or State reservations shown on this map 

Public Land Survey System not shown because of Insufficient data 

The Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge consists of public land 
in coastal waters and adjacent seas of Alaska, except for lands within 
other National reservations 


Ik 



UTM GRID AND 2002 MAGNETIC NORTH 
DECUNATION AT CENTER OF SHEET 



20% 

TOTAL RECOVERED FIBER 


SCALE 1:25 OCO 



1000 


1000 


2000 


3000 


KILOMETERS 1 

METERS 1000 

0 

MILES 

4000 soon 6000 

FEET 


7000 



0000 9000 100(10 


, -.ys 

QUADRANGLE LOCATION 


ROAD CLASSIFICATION 

Primary highway Light-duty road, hard or 

hard surface. _______ improved surface. 

Secondary Highway 

hard surface. ________ Unimproved road . 


1 Interstate Route 


] j U.S. Route 


State Route 


CONTOUR INTERVAL 10 METERS 
SUPPLEMENTARY CONTOUR INTI RVAL 5 METERS 
DATUM IS MEAN SEA LEVEL 
TO CONVERT FROM METERS TO FEET. MULTIPLY BY 3.2808 


FOR SALE BY U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, P.O. BO> 25286, DENVER, COLORADO 80225 

A FOLDER DESCRIBING TOPOGRAPHIC MAPS AND S'. MBOLS IS AVAILABLE ON REQUEST 


1 

S 

s 

4 

5 Saint George bland East 

6 

7 

8 


ADJOINING QUADRANGLES 


1 

2 

1 

3 

4 


5 

6 

7 

8 


SAINT GEORGE ISLAND WEST, AK 

2001 













































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































’50 10'| 490 000 METERS ’51 


Northeast 

Point 

(Chaxaxl 


* Rocks. 


Huchinson 
( Hill 


NORTHEAST POINT 


Shoal 


lAanui 


360 000 
METERS 


neptA 


**: Shoal 


U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 
NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION 
OFFICE OF RESPONSE AND RESTORATION 
PRIBIIOF ISLANDS ENVIRONMENTAL RESTORATION PROJECT 


U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 
U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 


SAINT PAUL ISLAND WEST QUADRANGLE 
ALASKA - PRIBILOF ISLANDS 
1:25 000-SCALE SERIES (TOPOGRAPHIC) 

17'30"i 482 500 METERS ‘44 170 


science for a changing world 


a 4r~N 


North Point 
(Chugumdaa) 


LAKE 


NATIONAL OCEANIC AND 
ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION 


er Hill 
ix Qayaa) 


Einahnuhto 

Bluffs 


/kadgum Qayaa I 


Polovina 
\ Point 

II. 


fUluuitanaSl 


St Paul Island 
Airport 


SouthwestPoint *'* 

(Siitxaagux) ** 


Communication 

Tower 


Shoal 


S COAST GUARD’ 
reservation 

ligation <» 

Tower 


355 000 
METERS 


: Middle Hill 
\lQugagnax) 


Stony Point 
(isugim Chitxuudaxl 


Za; (Ini Point 
11 tdatanax) 


Tolstoi Point 
(A ye§inaxl 


WILDLIFE 


Shoal 


Lukanin 

Point 


"32"*"N 


Shoal 


£40 000 
METERS 


S 54"“"E 

SURVEY. HESTON, VIRGINIA - 2002 


; ' ■ WjS ’45 15' 1485 000 METERS 

■ Tk Kitovi Point 

I lUtuugan) 

Cern Produced by the United States Geological Survey 
Bluffs 111 cooperation with U. S. Department of Commerce, 
waaqa m National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 
Topography derived from Imagery taken 1993. Planimetry derived 
from Imagery taken 2001 and other sources. Survey control 
current as of 2000. This map has not been held checked 
Boundaries current as of 2001 

North American Datum of 1983 (NAD 83). Projection and 

1 000-meter grid: Universal Transverse Mercator, zone 2 

2 500-meter ticks: Alaska Coordinate System of 1983 (zone 9) 

North American Datum of 1927 (NAD 27) Is shown by dashed 
comer ticks. The values of the shift between NAD 83 and NAD 27 
are obtainable from National Geodetic Survey NADCON software 

There may be private tnholdlngs within the boundaries of the 
National or State reservations shown on this map 

Public Land Survey System not shown because of insufficient data 

The Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge consists of public land 
in coastal waters and adjacent seas of Alaska, except for lands within 
other National reservations 


INTERIOR GEOLOGICAL 

ROAD CLASSIFICATION 

Light-duty road, hard or 
_________ improved surface. 


Primary highway 

hard surface. 

Secondary highway 
hard surface. 


ALASKA 


o 2 3«»»n 


KILOMETERS 


347 500 
METERS 


METERS 


Unimproved road 


Crater 

Point 


QUADRANGLE LOCATION 


State Route 


Interstate Route 


CONTOUR INTERVAL 10 METERS 
SUPPLEMENTARY CONTOUR INTERVAL 5 METERS 
DATUM IS MEAN SEA LEVEL 
TO CONVERT FROM METERS TO FEET. MULTIPLY BY 3.2808 


UTM GRID AND 2002 MAGNETIC NORTH 
DECUNATION AT CENTER OF SHEET 


4 Saint Paul Island West 


FISH AND WILDLIFE 
SERVICE 


SAINT PAUL ISLAND EAST, AK 
2001 


20% 

TOTAL RECOVERED FIBER 


FOR SALE BY U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, P.O. BOX 25286, JENVER, COLORADO 80225 

A FOLDER DESCRIBING TOPOGRAPHIC MAPS AND SYMBOLS I i AVAILABLE ON REQUEST 


ADJOINING QUADRANGLES 


Reef Point 
(Qjgaankadaa 


475 000 METERS 


u 2r-N 


475 000 METERS 


7'30" I S 44“«E 

INTERIOR • GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, RESTON. VIRGINIA 2002 



4- 

i 


1- 

| 

I 

r?° 

/b * 

g} 2 /* Walrus Island 
a) / (Tanaadax) 


o ^ 


1 

2 

3 

4 


5 

6 

7 

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Biographical note 


Betty Ann (Lausier) Lindsay was a former math teacher and college administrator, and the NOAA 
Ptibilof Restoration Project history researcher. She has published more than twenty historical writ- 
ings primarily focused on ethnic genealogy. Ms. Lindsay’s writing experience includes authoring 
of a newspaper food-column and technical writing for a national craft magazine. Her book titled 
William Robertson Descendants received a 1999 book award nomination from The State Histori¬ 
cal Society of Wisconsin. Originally from Madawaska, Maine, Betty received her BA in Education/ 
Math from Rivier College, Nashua, New Hampshire and a M.Ed. in Administration and Supervision 
from Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia. She is the senior author of Pribilof Islands, Alaska: 
Genealogy and Census. 



Betty A. Lindsay, St. Paul 
Island, September 2000. 
(Photo: NOAA, John A. 
Lindsay) 


John A. Lindsay served as NOAA’s manager for the 
Pribilof Islands Environmental Restoration Project 
during 1999-2008. He recently edited and pub¬ 
lished The Alaska Fur-Seal Islands, a manuscript 
originally drafted by G Dallas Hanna in 1923. Mr. 
Lindsay is the senior author of The Pribilof Islands, 
Alaska: An Annotated Bibliography, Pribilof Islands, 
Alaska: Guide to Photographs and Illustrations-, and 
The Pribilof Islands, Preserving the Legacy. He has 
produced two documentaries about the Pribilof 
Islands, Henry Wood Elliott: Defender of the Fur Seal 
(DVD; Seattle, WA; NOAA, 2005) and People of the 
Seal (DVD; Seattle, WA: NOAA, 2009). In earlier 
times, Mr. Lindsay worked as an estuarine/nearshore 
zooplankton taxonomist and ecologist, and a marine 
macrobenthic infauna taxonomist, and subsequently 
represented NOAA’s natural resource trustee inter¬ 
ests at Superfund sites. 



John A. Lindsay, St. Paul Island, 
March 2007. (Photo: NOAA, Dan 
Doyle.) 


683 



































































Am,nl S,T, °NS 


